Water Under the Bridge
by iknowthewords
Summary: Reno has left his Shinra days and hasn't looked back. He stays far away from Midgar, avoids dogs named Rufus, and anything that otherwise reminds him of his past. But his calamity just doesn't stay behind... and neither does she. ReTi
1. Twilight

Copy/pasted Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy, or anything else in this piece of work. I think I mention other things that I do not own, and I am too lazy to cite each one, so I will say that every product, trademark, quote, etc. mentioned/used belong to their respective companies.

  
**Chapter 1**

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_Life is an unrelenting comedy... therein lies the tragedy of it._

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Junon was best at night.

The pressing darkness was kept at length by the artificial lights; by neon signs and street lamps that dimmed out the stars, though one could be certain that tonight the sky was clear. The air was humid and very palpable, and sometimes the nearby sea would bring a cooler breeze.

To some people, this would not go unappreciated... or at least unnoticed. It most certainly wasn't by this familiar figure sauntering down the street: his hands deep in his pockets, his posture so easy he was nearly bent forward, dragging his heels on the pavement -- his manner, it was almost too laid-back. But he felt the city night had always been in his veins, sinking within him so that he felt he couldn't depart from it; all discolored twilight and artificial luminescence, breathing smoke and favoring the shadows.

Momentarily he looked up ahead of him as headlights from a passing car briefly illuminated his profile. Pupils contracting, his aquamarine irises took on a slight unnatural glow as they absorbed the light.

He'd been staring ahead at a certain business on the corner; it looked like pretty much any other building in Junon, aside from the door that had been painted garishly bright, the flyers advertising amateur nights in the window, and the neon sign reading _the Jukebox_, glowing backwards from the inside.

Burning cigarettes; low, dim lights; late-night wonderment. Distractive release.

It all flat-lined the conscience and diluted the memories, that they might not come so fast in the upshot. That was perhaps his reason for coming here, his ulterior motive -- and maybe other peoples', too. 

He came in during intermission, and some people greeted him, calling out his name, trying to be heard over the din. In response he might nod his head in lazy regard, or if it was a girl, he would put on a sly and disarming smile, and wink at her.

Around here he had become well-known for his crooked grin and facetious wit. He was the guy who looked like he had his mouth on wrong, always quick to laugh, to put out that he hadn't one care or contention in the world, and inward was a fragile flame. He never let it show through to betray his smile, because there was no room for retrospection. His eyes were too full, the night was too promising to just look back and remember.

These people didn't know his past. They didn't have to know.

And he was better for it, all the quicker to forget -- if not for this night, then for the moment. Here, he was just Reno... far removed from the title "Turk."

Pivoting on one foot, he turned to see who had just called out for him. He was still getting used to having people he'd never met before know his name.

It was a kid, maybe a few years younger than him, trying to sound casually inquisitive. "When's your set?"

Reno's mouth turned up at the corner and his eyes simpered a little, half in amusement that this guy actually cared, the other half in apology. "I'm not doin' one tonight." This was his day off, but he still hung around here when there was nothing better to do.

"...oh," the kid said, crestfallen, and Reno was almost sorry.

In mock solemnity he reached out and rumpled his hair to cheer him up, offhandedly asking, "Cy is the MC tonight, isn't he?"

The kid, who now had slightly matted hair, nodded.

"Thought so," Reno murmured to himself as he walked past. He stuffed his hands back into the pockets of his expensive leather jacket(the collar of which needed to be adjusted) and brushed his bangs out of his eyes with a toss of his head. Since Meteor, he hadn't bothered to even trim his hair. It was still pulled back in the usual loose ponytail that now barely came down past his shoulder blades; it was still the same deep, rich scarlet color, dappled copper in this light. He was very proud of it, but an almost offensive number of people liked to ask if he dyed his hair.

He couldn't help it if he stood out in a crowd. Being a scar-faced, fair-skinned redhead who didn't freckle and spoke with a dissolved Midgarian slum accent, it was easy to be noticed. He was also tall and very lanky -- almost curiously so. And he had bad posture.

It might sound bad when you put it all together like that, but that didn't mean he couldn't carry himself with confidence. He'd learned to live with the physical scars, especially the ones that marred his face, right across his defined cheekbones; and when it came down to it, he didn't care what people thought of him.

That was probably why he didn't get stage fright.

He couldn't quite explain how or why, but he felt calm up there; even if the spotlight was on him, he couldn't feel any more at ease. There would be times when he would just look at himself and wonder what he was doing here, if any job he took could ever top the elite Turk profession. But he didn't know what else he was good for -- if not this, then what would he do? He'd been to the bottom. He never wanted to sink that low again.

Ironic, that he'd gone from a nightstick to a microphone. Reno wasn't so sure if that was better or worse. This would be the point at which he'd wonder what Tseng would think... rather he _would_, if Tseng's memory wasn't so upsetting. So he let it go.

Tonight he was going to hang around the bar, get a drink, amuse himself, maybe talk to some other people who had a gig here. When intermission was over, he might go in and see the show, or he would stay where he was and listen to the music and the punch lines and the rolling laughter from the bar. Either way, his contentions would fade into the blurring lines, dulled and farcical, and he'd be mighty fine.

Weaving between people, he couldn't help but catch odd little snatches of excited conversation. He also noticed the difference in the atmosphere... how it seemed electric, a little more restless. Paying no mind to it, he plopped down into a bar stool and immediately noticed something very significant:

There was nobody behind the bar.

Reno took a deep breath, told himself there was no reason to panic. Where was the person to serve drinks? They were supposed to be standing right _there_. Hopeful and anxious, he looked all over and up and down the area for the bartender while staying in his seat. Surely they were only hiding under the counter...? No. No, they weren't.

He sat upright again on the stool, let his hair fall back into place, and threw a furious glance behind himself. Who was working the bar tonight? And why weren't they right here? He wasn't even working today, and he couldn't be bothered to get up and get himself a drink just because somebody wasn't doing their job.

A moment later, Reno was still looking over his left shoulder when he could sense displaced air in front of where he sat. Someone had finally come up behind the bar.

Slamming his open palms down on the counter top, he whirled his head around too fast for his ponytail to catch up. "THERE you are!" he'd already begun to rebuke. "Wh--"

The words died in his throat when he saw that he was not talking to an incompetent co-worker at all, but a woman... a woman that he could recognize. He had observed the long, dark hair, the shape of the face, but most striking were her eyes: such a deep shade of brown, wide and soulful, with almost red undertones... he knew those eyes. It was....

It was HER -- !

As soon as that registered Reno jerked back a little too far, out of impulse and plain shock, and no sooner had that happened than he felt himself lose balance. His chair wobbled dangerously as he tried to right it but to no avail -- and with a muttered curse, a brief exclamation tucked sideways into the air; he toppled backwards, right out of his bar stool.

  


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Post-chapter Notes: Hey, y'all! Remember me?

*silence.... crickets chirp ......someone coughs*

Er, well -- that's alright! Man, it's good to be back. I've been on this site for more than a year and I'm only starting on my second project! ^_^ I finally got over a creative drought and wrote this in the span of a couple of days, so it's fairly short and I was just setting the atmosphere and such. It's not as lighthearted as I meant it to be, but that's just how it came out (I'm getting back into the groove of things, you see). The humor will undoubtedly pick up. And what it's about.... well, the central theme is never what I initially plan it to be. I know I didn't come out and say what exactly Reno's occupation is (although I'm pretty sure you can guess), but it'll say in the next chapter.

Well, think I should cut it right here. But before you go, press that pretty little button and write a review! Whether you've read my other stuff or this is the first you've seen, I'd love to hear from you. =D Thanks!


	2. 101 Damnations

**Chapter 2**

...right, so that wasn't so smooth on his part.

One second he was falling away, his sight slipping under the mahogany counter top; the next, he could feel jarring impact with the floor, could hear the sharp clatter of the bar stool as it landed on its side.

Reno found himself on his back, staring up at the bare ceiling lights in something of a daze. He was vaguely aware of the total silence filling his ears. To his chagrin, everybody had probably turned to look at him. That was bad enough, but then the entire place was overcome with rolling laughter, so loud he could feel it reverberating in his chest. He couldn't even hear himself groan.

It wasn't everyday that Reno was caught in an embarrassing situation, and he was certain everybody would take advantage of this. He could just see it now: every time he would enter the room, they would say, "Look, it's the guy who fell out of his chair! Let's all point and laugh and take pictures." They were never going to let him live this one down.

And it would all be _her_ fault.

People were gathering around. As he recollected his senses, it occurred to him that _she_ might come around, too.

Somebody was in his line of perception, looking down at him, but he couldn't tell just who. Reno blinked furiously. The light had temporarily stained his vision, and so all he could see were splotches, pressing an odd collage against his eyelids.

He desperately hoped it wasn't the AVALANCHE chick -- he wanted her to stay far, FAR away from him -- but as his eyesight was still clearing, he couldn't even make out a semblance of her. All he could discern was a head of airy black hair, a very wide grin.

"Reno, buddy, what're you doin' down there?"

He said nothing, just glared back up at the guy he could now clearly recognize as a co-worker. There was a barbell through his right eyebrow and two rings in his left. He was no more than nineteen, and wore dark clothing with many unnecessary buckles and zippers. Having run around in only a business suit for the past seven years, Reno was out of the loop, and so the kid's fashion statements never failed to confuse and disturb him. But perhaps this ran in the family, because his parents had been weird enough to name him Dragen -- that's 'dragon', except for some reason misspelled.

Still chuckling, he kneeled down and extended a hand to Reno, who was unfortunately no longer in any sort of good-natured mood. He gave him a look that conveyed he'd rather _bite_ his hand than accept help up, so Dragen moved back and gave him room to get up on his own.

Rolling over and untangling his legs from those of the bar stool, Reno eased himself onto his feet, trying to ignore the throbbing dizziness in his head and the sharp pain down his back. But he wasn't so successful, as he found himself leaning too far to one side, and he had to grab the edge of the counter for support.

"Y'alright there, Reno?" someone called out.

He clenched his jaw and slumped heavily against the counter, willing the room to stop spinning. "Yeah, yeah..." he replied dismissively, and when he was able to, he cast a glance at the AVALANCHE chick, who was distracted by another patron nearby. The bar had become awful crowded, and he realized it had little to do with his fall.

Dragen righted the bar stool and scooted it back into place. "That's Tifa Lockheart," he obligingly informed him, as if Reno had urgently asked to know the name of that ravishing siren. He upturned his nose and gave him a sideways, mock-condescending look. "You must've been pretty shocked, fallin' out of your chair and all..."

Reno stayed leaning against the counter, attempting to kill him with his eyes.

"Um, excuse me..."

The two of them lifted their heads to see the AVALANCHE chick standing in front of them again. This was harsh reality for Reno, because he was still not quite used to the prospect of her being here. Beside him, Dragen stood gaping.

She hesitated, and he could feel the air linger, could sense her uneasiness in the situation. "Is everything... alright here?" she asked Dragen. Evidently she could only bear to slide her gaze over to Reno for only half a second. He felt his resentment for her deepening.

Dragen was a pitiful sight to behold. His suave front, presumably to woo her with his coolness, didn't work out so well. His body barely swayed to the side, and he tossed his head in a very unconvincing manner. "Y, yeah..." he replied with forced smoothness, "Everything's fine."

It was quite possibly the most pathetic thing Reno had ever seen. Almost laughable, if it weren't so sad to watch.

The AVALANCHE chick seemed curious yet content with his answer. She would have turned to heed someone else's call, but she didn't, as Dragen did not stop staring at her. A very uncomfortable moment ensued: she looked painfully uneasy and confused, he kept watching her intensely, and Reno stood to the side, heavily considering slapping him upside the head.

Dragen suddenly made a grandiose gesture. "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day--?"

That was all Reno could take. Without so much as a look at the AVALANCHE chick's reaction, he grabbed the bumbling fool by the collar of his jacket and dragged him out of the bar area. He reached a corner of the room, where it wasn't so crowded and he was far enough away from her, and roughly let go. 

"What'd you do THAT for?" whined Dragen as he rubbed his neck, a most reproachful look in his narrow eyes.

"I was doing you a favor," Reno lowered his voice, whispering fiercely. "You were making a FOOL of yourself. What were you thinking, reciting _poetry_? Like she'd fall for that... what would she want with _you_, anyway? You're a kid! You have... _duct tape_ on your pants!"

At a loss for words, Dragen slowly retreated his hand from his neck, looked down at his duct-taped pants, and sulked.

Reno cut his eyes in her direction. She wasn't facing him, as she was busy preparing a drink. He found himself staring at the back of her head, all that ridiculously long hair; the light seemed to favor it. It was really making him ill to see everyone acting so happy to see her here... especially all the men crowding around her. Where the heck was her boyfriend? They weren't all hitting on her, were they? No one could be that stupid....

  


"Come on. You _know_ you want me."

"Actually..... no, I don't."

"Damn."

Tifa watched yet another guy turn around and slump away, defeated. It really amazed her as to how many had tried to hit on her on her first day at work, horrid pick-up lines and all. She really hated to turn them down, but if she'd learned anything tonight, it was that rejection was good for most guys. It kept their huge egos in check.

Overall, she did feel welcome. Some people who were hanging around her only made friendly conversation, asking about how she was doing and how other people in AVALANCHE were getting along. Perhaps she shouldn't have conceded that she was single; she was almost certain they wouldn't give her all this attention otherwise.

The bar was busy tonight, almost stressfully so -- and Tifa had to admit that Reno's presence did not make matters any better. That first glimpse of him had been disconcerting, and since it happened it would not stop playing over in her head. He'd drawn back in surprise as she had, and when he'd disappeared under the horizon of the counter, she had initially thought he'd just ducked out of her sight. But from the resounding clatter and seeing him sprawled out on the floor, she'd realized that was not so.

Tifa wasn't sure she'd completely gotten over the shock. She stole a brief glance in his direction, to the far corner of the room, and immediately went back to trying to focus on her job. Absently she shook her head, in attempt to disregard the mental snapshot. He just looked so out of context. She didn't know him without the Turk uniform.

He seemed well-liked here, which she didn't understand. Didn't they know his past as a Turk? Did they notice the empty holster on his belt, or did they just think that was a fashion statement of some sort? Dragen _did_ wear a chain necklace with a padlock on it, for some reason...

She was so distracted she almost didn't notice the crowd around the bar becoming smaller. People were finishing off their drinks, bidding her farewell and filing into the back room, the auditorium. Reno was one of the last to go in. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and strolled across the floor, a small band of people closely following. There was an easy, complacent half-grin on his face, and when he murmured something Tifa couldn't quite make out, they laughed. One of the girls giggled rather shrilly. He passed the bar with an air of affected impassiveness, easily staring ahead, not acknowledging her. They disappeared through the doorway, leaving the total number of people left in the room precisely one.

Tifa realized she'd been holding her breath. She exhaled deeply, sagging her shoulders, blowing loose tendrils of hair out of her face. She scanned the counter, over all the empty mugs and tumblers and little spills, feeling a faint, lonely rush of nostalgia.

Intermission was over.

~*~**~***~**~*~

The parking complex was a good long block away from the Jukebox, which meant for the exhausted Tifa that she had some walking to do on top of driving herself home. She'd been the last to leave after the show, although a few people stayed back as long as she did. Reno, thankfully, was not to be seen by her for the rest of the night.

She yawned, clamping her hand over her mouth. Somewhere in her sleepy, bleary mind, she decided that it wasn't so bad. She was tired of racking her brain over what to make of it. Seeing him once didn't have to mean anything -- he could be a regular at this place, but she was under no obligation to say anything to him. He appeared to avoid her anyway, she told herself, so there was really no need to feel so uncomfortable whenever he was in the same room.

That logic seemed to ease her worries.

With the aid of some street lights, Tifa could see that the parking lot was for the most part empty; there was only one car other than hers. Digging through her purse for the keys, she briefly wondered how late it was, then decided she'd rather not know. She wanted nothing more right now than to just crawl into bed.

Plopping into the driver's seat, she shut the car door. Filled with anticipation of welcome silence and warm covers and just closing her heavy-lidded eyes; more anxious than ever to get home, she inserted the key, turned the ignition, and....

A moment later Tifa found herself just sitting there, and in her condition it took a little longer to realize that nothing had happened, and something was very wrong with her car. She tried again.

No lights, nothing. The car did not even start.

She turned the ignition once more, as if the results would be different, and immediately her numb confusion turned into panic.

"No...!" she whimpered, beating her fists on the wheel. This couldn't be happening, not tonight! The car battery must have died... and she didn't even have a PHS. This was not good! What was she going to do?!

Then she remembered that she was in the CITY. She wouldn't have to walk far in any direction to get help. Alright, so at this time of night it was questionable, but she had no other choice.

Without another thought she jumped out of her car and slammed the door shut... she found herself staring ahead, two parking spaces away, at Reno. He was standing by his own car, frozen in the midst of fishing around for his keys, and apparently he'd noticed her, too.

  
  
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Post-chapter Notes: ...whew. Sorry for the long delay, but I was having big problems with this. Nothing in this chapter turned out the way I planned it to, but I suppose that just happens sometimes... argh! Bear with me!

Wanted to keep this short... I'm tired. But I do wanna say that I really appreciated the reviews; I like hearing from you people! It makes me happy, it keeps me going. Not really much more to add, except...

...feedback? *nudge-nudge*


	3. A Hit Below the Belt

**Chapter 3**

An incredibly long moment of silence ensued.

They wordlessly stared at one another, not moving an inch, Tifa becoming increasingly aware of her gross discomfort in this situation. It was late at night, and here she was in an empty parking lot with her dead car and somebody who had in the past tried to kill her many, many times. She couldn't tell what he could possibly be thinking, either: the light was dim and he had his head inclined in such an angle that his bangs covered much of the left side of his face.

From what she could tell, his expression wasn't surprised but more aware and somehow reserved. He also looked faintly quizzical, probably on account of her jumping out of her car for no obvious reason. The silence pressed on longer until he suddenly broke his gaze and looked down at the keys he was fumbling with, shaking his head slightly as if deciding that whatever was wrong with her was none of his concern.

Tifa watched as he unlocked his car, and, without thinking, spoke up before he could open the door.

"Excuse me...!"

He stopped, and it was another moment before he looked at her again. "What?" he asked, not sounding particularly vexed, yet not happy to be bothered. She got the impression that he was smoothing over his annoyance.

With his gaze on her, she immediately felt pressed to speak. "I... well, it's my... my car." Tifa saw his eyes narrow, and she looked back at her vehicle for the sake of not looking at him; she was unable to shake the feeling that he was calculating her movements, testing her anxiety, sizing her up. "It's not... working, and I don't even... I don't know what to..." she heaved a short sigh, frustrated with her disconcertion, fumbling for the right words. "...I need help."

That was pretty weak way to end it. She wasn't crazy about having to ask him for assistance. If she had jumper cables, she'd be set, but she didn't... and even if _he_ did, she could not imagine him jumping her car for her.

But Reno did not scoff. Hunching his shoulders, he lifted his eyebrows in a dubious, almost leisurely manner, and closed his eyes for a moment. "_You're_ Tifa Lockheart," he said in a tone that seemed too mild to carry so well.

Caught off-guard, she eyed him cautiously. "Well... yes." She wasn't entirely sure of what he was implying.

He opened his eyes again, and she noticed how stunningly clear they were; cool, lucid aquamarine that stood out so well in the near darkness. "So can't you just call one of your friends or somethin'?"

Tifa almost visibly winced. "I don't... have a PHS."

Another long, quiet minute followed; another blinking exchange of uneasiness or lassitude. Then Reno walked around his car to the passenger side, reaching inside his jacket. He pulled out his own PHS and tossed it to her, across the empty parking space between them. Sighing deeply, he looked away, as if it were killing him to be a gentleman.

She forgot to thank him.

Opening her door again, she slid into the driver's seat and dug through her purse, finding the number she was looking for soon enough. PHS in one hand, she dialed with her thumb and then held the phone to her ear, praying her call would be answered.

Three rings, then: "...hello?"

"Reeve!" Tifa whispered eagerly, keeping her voice low so that Reno would not hear.

"Tifa..." he trailed off incredulously, then cleared his throat, obviously checking his watch. "Ah... why are you--?"

"Reeve, I need a favor." Tifa was now anxiously leaning forward in her seat, gripping the PHS to her right ear with both hands. Her car door was still open, and one leg was hanging out of the vehicle, her foot flat on the ground. She took advantage of his bewildered silence. "My car isn't working and I'm probably getting it towed. I need a ride home."

From the other end, he sighed regretfully. "I'm sorry, Tifa, but I can't tonight. I'm still at work, and the meeting's running late."

She could not believe what she was hearing. _But there's no one else!_ "Reeve...?" Her voice almost reduced to a pleading whimper.

"I'm really sorry, but you know I would if I could. There are representatives here from Costa and Wutai... from all over the place. I can't just cut this short."

He was head of the Junon Branch, the building in this city that was left behind by Shinra. Since its fall nearly half a year ago, all the nations became independent of each other, but only recently came together to form some sort of unity. Junon might have been the biggest city, but they were to make sure that it would not overpower the other nations. With no vicious anarchy, they all seemed more willing to work together to keep history from repeating itself. 

"_Reeve_!!" Tifa was desperate not be left behind in an empty little parking complex late at night with a Turk. She didn't know what she'd been thinking, asking for help from him... she was surprised he even lended her his phone. But that didn't mean he'd changed, that his intentions could be any purer. "If you don't drive me home, I'll....!"

"Tifa, are you... threatening me?"

She said nothing to this, because it had been true. Luckily she'd caught herself in the act and stopped before she would regret it, before following up with something like, "I'll rip yer left ear off and stick it on a key chain." But she was ashamed nonetheless, because she just wasn't the sort of girl who did this kind of thing. Sure, she'd threatened people who really deserved it, like Don Corneo. But Reeve was not a libidinous skank.

Touching her fingertips to her temple, she apologized profusely, told him that she was just having a very bad night.

Someone's voice was in the background. "...it's alright. Listen, I have to let you go. Is there some other way you can get home... anyone else you can get a ride from?" 

Tifa clenched her jaw and stared straight ahead, all too wary of Reno on the very edge of her vision. "I.... guess so."

"I'll talk to you tomorrow," Reeve said, and terminated the call.

_Sure_, Tifa thought sourly as she pressed the little 'end' button, _I'll get a ride home. I'll get a ride home with someone who probably has a corpse in his trunk._ And with that she miserably imagined them having to take a detour so he could dump it into the ocean.

  


Reno sat at the front end of his car, waiting. Slumped forward, staring down at nothing in particular, a cigarette hanging so loosely in his mouth it was pointing at the ground. After taking a drag, he took it meticulously between his fingers and closely examined it out of sheer boredom; heavy-lidded eyes watching the glowing ash lengthen and consume the paper. He parted his lips, and the breeze seemed to pull the smoke from his mouth.

Then he sent it trailing, the downward slope of a falling star, only graceless -- and it hit the concrete, causing the ash to break and crumble. For an obscure reason he paused, and after watching it for a moment his eyes dimmed, chilled that it should come back to him now, that in lingering curls of smoke and idle bearing he could feel the retention of some legacy, broken and smoldering at his feet...

"Hey."

Inwardly cursing his luck, Reno did not look up at her straight away, because what had just shot up his spine was now burning in his face. He sighed, evening out the trepidation he hoped she wasn't aware of. "...what....?"

"Are you alright?"

The concern in her voice was very aggravating. Raising his head slightly, he did not look at her. "I'm fine," he said with annoyance, still affecting smoothness in his tone, like velvet being brushed the wrong way.

"Are you sure?"

Reno looked up and met her gaze squarely, glaring, smoky eyes above sneering scars. Apologizing, she backed away. He remembered why he was in this situation in the first place, and quickly changed the subject. "So what's the deal?" he nearly demanded, snatching his PHS out of her hand.

"Well..." Tifa paused, almost dreading what she had to say because she wasn't expecting him to help any more. "I'm getting the car towed, but I couldn't manage to get a ride home."

He found that hard to believe. "You couldn't bum a ride off _anybody_?"

"...no."

What this meant was beginning to dawn on him. At length he stared at her, scrutinizing as if trying to determine whether or not she was lying. It would be so easy to just say, "Sucks when THAT happens," and then drive himself home, whistling a happy tune. Actually, that was exactly what he felt like doing, but there was something that implored him not to. A Turk was to be a perfect gentleman in social situations, as instilled in him by his boss. He'd never really minded it, considering most women found it very charming. But he was not here to sweep Tifa Lockheart off her feet -- he was perhaps the only man on the planet who didn't _want_ to. Nevertheless, he still felt so inclined to this moral obligation -- though it was horribly ironic, considering he was a Turk.

He stood up suddenly, and she drew back, because she had not remembered him being this much taller than Cloud. "Fine," he said, certain that he was going to regret this.

She seemed a bit surprised, but very grateful. "Thank you," she managed, and Reno looked severely displeased.

  


A while later they were pulling out of the parking complex in Reno's car, which was obviously one of the last Shinra models. Observing the sleek blackness, the admittedly comfortable leather interior, Tifa wasn't sure what to think about the fact that he still seemed so well-to-do these days. She was not impressed, however, with his driving skills.

More like horrified.

"Do you have to drive so _fast_?" she asked, her back pressed against the seat.

Reno waved a dismissive hand. "Ahh, no one's on the road this late at night."

That wasn't entirely true, but she decided not to say anything. Instead, she put on her seat belt and made sure it was very secure, then turned and quietly watched everything fly past the passenger's window.

But then she heard a muffled thump, and it jarred both of them slightly. "Whoa..." Reno murmured, squinting at his rear-view mirror. "Think that was a cat..."

Feeling slightly ill, Tifa sank lower in her seat and prayed fervently that it wasn't. "Do you even _have_ a driver's license?" she was almost afraid to ask.

"Nah, it was revoked."

She stared at his profile, really starting to hate it when he used that tone of voice that made it impossible to tell if he was joking or not.

They approached an intersection. "Now which way from here?" he asked.

"Um... right, I think."

"Oops!" Reno said a bit too cheerily, suddenly making a sharp U-turn. "That was a _one-way_ street!"

"RENO!!" she cried, lunging over to grab the steering wheel.

The car came to a screeching halt, narrowly missing another vehicle, which had stopped as well. Some guy was yelling obscenities and shaking his fist. The whole ordeal was Reno's fault, but he stuck his head out the window and cussed the other driver out, anyway. Once that was over with, he turned back around to see that a clearly traumatized Tifa had not let go of the steering wheel. Her knuckles were pale, her eyes were wide, and her breaths were sharp, displacing the bangs which were splayed wildly across her face.

Mildly amused, he made an unsuccessful attempt to pry her fingers off the wheel. "Why, Tifa, if you wanted to drive, you could have just said so."

"You almost got us KILLED!" she yelled, still holding on for dear life, her heart still beating wildly from shock.

Reno laughed. "You sound just like Elena!"

Tifa could not help but feel a rush of sympathy for the poor girl. She reluctantly let go, and slid back into her seat. "Just... get me home in one piece!"

"...fine," Reno muttered as he resumed driving, appearing to get serious at last. He seemed sore about it, though, and the silence was her punishment, but she didn't want to say anything that would make things retrogress into how they were before.

"Why are you here?" he asked a bit rudely.

She was confused and a little annoyed. "...what? What kind of a question is that?"

Reno gave her a low-brow, don't-play-stupid look. "Ohh, don't tell me it's just a _coincidence_... I could swear, the lot of you, you're like cockroaches. You're EVERYWHERE." And he felt this was very true. They infested his life, they got in the way of the Turks, they were the terrorist group that just -- didn't -- DIE. When one of them finally snuffed it, three more had popped up in her place. "I thought that after Midgar was leveled, you'd finally leave me alone, but nooo... it was bad enough when the papers ran stories everyday about what you friggin' ate for breakfast. Why'd you have to come back?"

"That's right, the world revolves around you. How was I supposed to know that Junon was already 'taken'?" If she'd known that he would be here, she wouldn't have considered moving.

"Where's the rest of 'em?" Reno looked behind himself, half-expecting the little kleptomaniac ninja to jump out of the back seat and steal his wallet.

"I didn't... come here with anyone else," Tifa said quietly.

"You didn't?" Reno said, his brow furrowing as he slowed to a stop at the light. "I'm confused. Where's your Strifey-wifey?"

Warmth rising in her cheeks, she turned and looked out her window, through one-way tinted glass, feeling the recurrence of a thousand regrets and the sting of missed chances. "It's none of your business."

From her reaction, Reno assumed the most obvious. "He _left_ you...!" Why wasn't this on the covers of all the tabloids? "What a shame... agonizing over that dead Ancient, I'll bet. Some people never learn to just run a comb through their hair and move on. Guess I shouldn't be so surprised, though. He was always a nutcase..."

"Shut up!" Tifa cried suddenly, and when she saw that he couldn't keep the amusement away from his mouth, she was almost too angry to put together a decent string of words. "You... you insensitive, self-centered ...underfed... JERK!"

"'Under_fed_'?!" Reno exclaimed. Of all the names she'd called him, this was clearly the most offensive.

"Why are you being like this all of a sudden?" She was beginning to regret everything, her mind was spinning. Why had she even bothered?

He frowned, still watching the road. His driving was starting to get crazy again. "I'm sorry, have we met? I was never fond of any of you, considering you hugged trees and it cost me my job. For a long time afterward I was dead broke, hardly scraping up enough gil to afford ramen noodles, and now I've landed a gig at some crummy comedy joint -- that's right, the Jukebox -- but that really isn't much of an improvement--"

"Why, because it's not blood money?"

There was a beat of silence before Reno spoke, an unmistakable edge on his voice imploring her to go from there. "Oh, don't even--"

She was off on a mad tirade; the words weren't even sifted through her mind before coming out of her mouth. "You're the last person who _deserves_ to be well-off, you _never_ made an honest living -- being the hit man for the Shinra, spying and killing and God knows what else. What's it like to mindlessly follow orders? The paycheck apparently made it all worthwhile... I don't know how you could live with yourself, at the expense of so many innocent people--"

_ SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!_

The vehicle came to a complete and abrupt halt, jerking a shocked Tifa back into her seat, but not Reno, who had braced himself. He turned to face her in numb disbelief, which would just as quickly be replaced with fury.

"Who the hell are YOU to condemn me? Don't talk down to me like I'm some low, debaucherous... sick _fool_ that kills for the pleasure of it, as if you've got any right to... oh, but your killing was for such a _noble_ cause, wasn't it?" he snorted. "That's just so typical. Must be so easy for you to say it, when the blood comes _off_..." His voice nearly drew out hoarse. He swiped his bangs back with a shaky hand, only for them to fall back seconds later, over guarded, narrowed eyes and wry gashes in his face. His mouth was set in bitter fierceness, and his rage got in the way, frustrating his words before giving them up altogether. "But I don't have to answer to you. You can't begin to imagine -- you don't even know..."

Regarding him with the same level of resentment, Tifa did not once look away from his bleary stare, but she found that she could not retort. There were so many disgraces that could not reach her tongue; she was angry beyond speaking.

Reno hunched over the steering wheel, all righteous indignation, damning Tseng's name, and hers -- because his whole world was once again misplaced pride and crimson regret. He did nothing to keep the silence from filling in the spaces.

Then he placed his hand on the steering wheel and lifted his eyes, staring unseeing through the windshield. "We're here." The words rolled off his tongue, too easy, giving no intimation of the spite he must have been feeling.

Tifa looked out her window, observing that they were at least two blocks away from her apartment. She managed to find her voice again. "No, w--"

"_Get out_."

Ice and venom and rose petals.

Swallowing hard, she chanced a look at his profile, tense with silent fury, her face burning with outrage and another terrible sensation that was akin to sheepishness. She hastened to get out of the car, and slammed the door shut behind her.

Reno made no movement, but then abruptly slammed his fist down on the dashboard, his vehicle speeding off as he did so. Tifa watched it go until she could no longer discern the blackness from the shadow, all along wondering if she really could have hit below the belt this time.

  
  


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Post-Chapter Notes: I'm soooooo sorry for the delay, but I was going through a rough spot. For one, I had to have surgery, and it's really not smart to write anything while under the influence of painkillers. Then other things happened that made me very uninspired, and for the longest time I had serious doubts about continuing with this story. I almost took it down.

I'm not quite happy with it, but I was sick of looking at it and figured it's been long enough! Some things still bother me... 'debaucherous' doesn't appear to be a word (why couldn't they just have an adjective form?), so I'll go back and fix that and other crummy parts someday. Someday.... 

Are you still there? ^_^ Sorry that I'm not a very efficient writer, but I'm so incredibly thankful for the feedback. It's all that keeps me going. 


	4. Turks of a Feather

** Chapter 4**

_Stupid cockroach._

There really wasn't much else that went through Reno's mind all morning. He blamed her for last night's insomnia, for causing him to drink too much; he blamed her for the hangover he woke up with; he cursed her name when he hit his already-throbbing head on the wooden door frame and light exploded behind his eyes.

It was all her fault.

Saturday nights never lasted long, and Sundays always woke up with no mercy. Power lines marked how low the sky hung, too close, too personal, staring him down for the things last night which he knew he shouldn't have done. And the morning sun was considerate -- sure to shine extra bright, just for his hangover.

He sighed softly, just enough to graze the breeze, and buried his fists in the pockets of his unzipped jacket: black sueded leather that wasn't so nice where it had been spattered with rain.

His sunglasses were rested on his nose, and the sun burned a copper halo into his hair. He still felt a little crummy, and his gait was slow and a bit and sluggish.

The way she'd looked at him last night was still etched on his mind. She'd backed away until she was pressed against the door, looking at him like he was low and disgusting and untouchable. He didn't dwell much on it, because he didn't like at all the way it made him feel, the almost vulnerable place it put him in...

But she wasn't right, he told himself. She couldn't have been more wrong.

So he would not let her win. He was going to do nothing to conform to what Tifa Lockheart thought he was. It didn't matter if he felt more like lying around in his apartment all Sunday, because he was not a bum. And he wasn't a drunk, either.

Right now he was on his way to get some coffee, maybe buy a newspaper with the gil he managed to scrape up; and being the functional member of society he was, he might get up to date on what was going on in the planet, reading more than just the comics section this time. And he would get something to eat as well, because contrary to what Tifa might think, he was in fact pretty well-fed.

  


This morning she watched the sun rise again.

It had been another sleepless night, so there had really been nothing better for her to do. She found herself waking up this early a lot more since moving to Junon -- it was one of the only things here that gave her a sense of familiarity. But it also made her feel a little lonesome, as if she were the only one watching.

The shades of light were visible long before the sun was seen peeking out between two buildings, and its rays only broke themselves on all the corners and edges. It became less like the sunbeams in her kitchen window in Nibelheim and more like the impersonal city dawn which she did not know. She'd stopped watching when the sun hung impaled by a skyscraper.

Now she was in her snug little kitchen, her dark hair loosely tied back, wiping off the counter and putting ingredients away. The air was warm with the scent of cookies in the oven, and there was a smudge of flour on her nose. She'd busied herself with baking all morning.

When Tifa was stressed out, she cooked. A lot. It really didn't matter what she made -- the more intricate, the better. She figured it was less harmful than, say, binge drinking... never mind that her method of anxiety control often left her with about six dozen more cookies than she knew what to do with.

She paused to rub at the sand in her eyes. More than anything she wanted to go back to sleep, but she knew her mind wouldn't shut off. Too much thinking and worrying and regretting.

Last night had that vague, dreamy feeling, as if it hadn't happened at all... though it had. She was angry at him all the same, but she couldn't help but feel a little guilty for going too far. Who knew it was possible to push his buttons? He always swaggered around like he was on Valium, didn't show a care in the world...

The very thought of work made her want to stay in bed all day. She positively dreaded seeing Reno every night, but the reason she took the job in the first place wasn't for money, but to get out of her lonely apartment and be social. His appearance wasn't going to make her quit her job, but it suddenly made her not so crazy about living alone in Junon anymore, and it had already taken her a while to get to the point where she _didn't_ hate it. It made her reconsider everything.

Could she go back?

No... no, she didn't want to see them all again. Not yet. Not until she found herself and regained her independence and didn't miss the stars...

She shook her head, tried to focus all her attention on scrubbing off some particularly hard, dried spot on the surface. After a moment she sighed.

He really didn't need to bring up Cloud. "Agonizing over that dead Ancient..." What was so depressing about it was that he was probably right. Nobody was exactly sure, because he'd shut himself off from everyone again. But she had seen what he was going through. All she wanted to do was hug him and tell him it would be alright... but how could she when he didn't seek comfort -- not even from her? The realization really hurt.

Then he'd left without a word. And not long after that, she did, too.

She sighed the sigh of a tired girl whose fairy tale shattered and the pieces fell and all that was left were her fractured dreams and broken record lies. But she was tired of thinking it to death, wondering what should have been and drying easy tears. Out her window, the clear sky, the rising buildings, and the bustle below seemed so much more inviting. She was going to clean herself up and go out... as soon as this last batch of cookies in the oven was done.

  


Walking out to his car, Reno stifled a yawn, keeping his head down, his neck almost parallel to the sky. Until he got some caffeine into his system, he was going to be awful lethargic and slow.

He watched the motor oil stains and speckled patterns of the concrete as he walked over them, thinking about absolutely nothing. The sounds around him mixed and blended into fairly unremarkable commotion, the sorts of things you hear in the city and pay no mind to. But fairly close by, he could hear somebody talking -- a lot, it seemed, about nothing in particular.

_Hey_, Reno thought vaguely. _ I used to know somebody with a motor mouth just like that_.

Very absently he moved a piece of hair out of his face, sniffed, looked up... and stopped.

His car was some distance away with a petite woman sitting on the hood, her blonde hair bobbing with the slightest movement. She was obviously talking too fast for the man next to her, soft glares chasing his bald head as he nodded rather mechanically.

For a moment his heart sank oddly, and he didn't breathe. The familiarity was almost painful.

"....so when do you think he'll come out....?" he barely heard her say. Then, as if on cue, they both looked up and saw him.

He didn't move. It felt like a long while before either of them did.

Then Rude stood up as tall as ever, dusting himself off and adjusting his sunglasses. "Reno," he said simply. There was a lightness to his voice that normally wasn't there.

Elena jumped to her feet, exasperated, relieved, and just a little indignant. "Finally, we FOUND you!"

Reno stood still, keeping his distance from them. They could see his eyebrows hardened behind jet lenses, his mouth a sort of disbelieving gash. Then he pressed his lips together, stretched one side into a bitter smile that marked a dimple in his left cheek and disrupted the curve of his scars. "What _took_ you so long?" he asked with sarcasm that dissolved his grin.

Silence fell between them for another moment. Rude took a step forward to close the distance, knitting his eyebrows in concern and a little bewilderment. "That's hardly the greeting we expected from you, Reno."

"Yeah!" Elena cut in, obviously quite livid. "We're your old comrades, remember? A simple 'hello' would have sufficed!"

Ignoring the funny feeling in his chest, Reno forced a watered-down smile, moving toward his car now while feeling for keys in his pocket. "Well, hey," he said dryly, hoping their chat was over. "Nice seeing you all again." But Rude hooked his fingers in the collar of his shirt when he tried to brush past. "Hngh--!"

"We're walking." Rude always had that quiet, sure voice, far too distinctive to imitate.

It was always two against one, and so he had absolutely no choice in the matter. He found himself back on the sidewalk, pretty much sandwiched between them and dragged along against his will. From the sour look on his face, the surreal feeling had ebbed away, and it was obvious that he didn't appreciate their intrusion back into his life. He wriggled impatiently, thinking if it weren't for them, he could be well on his way to getting coffee now. "How about an order from your _boss_?" he said through clenched teeth.

Elena smiled. "That doesn't hold much water. We're not under obligation from any sort of contract, not anymore." Then she faced him, her sideswept bangs fallen over her right eye, her tone quite different. "Besides, you may have inherited the position, but I know your heart was never really in it. You know what I'm talking about, Reno... Head of the Turks will always be Tseng's job."

Reno glared at her, ungrateful for the sudden turn in conversation which he knew would lead to places he did not want to go. He turned his gaze ahead again, changed the subject back. "Well, has it ever occurred to you that we..."

"...spent too much time together?" Rude sighed. "It's just not the _same_ without you. Come on, Reno... she talks my ear off..."

"I do NOT!" Elena cried. She moved sharply toward Rude, trying to reach him, but with the incensed redhead in her way, she had to give up. "Reno, hit him for me."

For once doing as he was told, he punched Rude in the arm and was lightly thrown back, partly because hitting Rude was much like hitting a tree, and partly from a sudden wave of nostalgia. This was just like old times, the same people he hung around with until they were all sick of each other; slow and boring days at the HQ, wordless nights at the bars -- all those days too far to grasp.

"You don't look so well, Reno," Elena observed with an incredibly annoying degree of concern.

"Yeah," Rude agreed, giving him an appraising look. "Still drinking heavy, I see."

"_No_," he said a bit defensively. "I've gotten better..." From their doubtful expressions, he amended his words. "At least, not as bad as I used to." He'd had to cut down in the first place for the simple fact that he was tired of feeling ill all the time, and since then he'd occasionally slipped up on some unlucky Saturdays, last night included. Reno shook his head, marveled at his terrible luck. If his old comrades had to come back, why couldn't they do it when he wasn't hungover and looking so pathetic?

"I'm FINE," he snapped, aggravated by the way they were looking at him. He took out his chrome-plated lighter and pack of cigarettes, sighing heavily when he found that he had already smoked his last one this morning.

"You sure _look_ like it," Elena said, noting the condition of the smooshed and empty carton.

He narrowed his tired eyes. "What? I slept on it." It would have been most accurate to say that he'd _passed out_ on it, but that would have made him look very pitiful.

"Do you have a job?" asked Rude.

"Of COURSE!" Reno said obnoxiously, tired of their nitpicking. "Do YOU?"

He nodded, a wry smile growing within his scant goatee. "...PHS salesman."

"No way...." Reno was so amused, a grin spread twitching on his face, wrinkling the bridge of his nose. Rude, whom he'd known as only a Turk for eight years, his old drinking buddy; he sold cell phones now? These were truly weird times. He quickly turned his head and faced Elena. "What about you?" he asked, a little more than curious.

"I don't _have_ a job," she replied grumpily, looking out at the other side of the street. "It's so fricking hard to find one these days."

_That must suck_, Reno thought. The only reason he had a job, really, was because he had been in the right place at the right time. "Do you have any idea of what you want to do? Like, what were your aspirations before you joined SOLDIER?" He was feeling impatient for lack of caffeine, but all the same he remembered what a drag it was to be an unemployed Turk -- to be a professional with all that experience and knowledge that was pretty much going to go to waste now.

Still looking out to the other side, her honey-brown eyes turned wide and unseeing. "Before I was in SOLDIER, I wanted to be..... in SOLDIER."

Reno slapped his forehead, and Rude sighed.

"Oh, who am I kidding?" Elena cried, her doomed future unfurling before her eyes. "I don't _know_ what I'm good for! I may as well just get a job at the..." she squinted at some building on the corner. "Burrito Hut -- and I swear, I've never heard a more dull and uninspiring name for a chain restaurant in my _life_ -- I'll get a job there and make tacos for minimum wage, for the rest of my career, and all of my co-workers will have mullets and a sixth grade education and --- HEY!"

Rude and Reno, whose eyes had glazed over near the beginning of her self-pitying rant, both jumped.

"A nice clothes store!" She pointed at the sign in the window. "They're hiring! I could do a clothes store..."

"You could do a clothes store," Reno echoed helpfully, though he really just wanted coffee.

"I'm going to march right in there and get an application!" Elena said with newfound zest. "Rude, come with me!" 

As she pulled at his sleeve, Rude turned his head and gave Reno a look that very well could have been faint helplessness. He responded with a rueful shrug, understanding that Elena rarely liked to do anything alone. "Need coffee. I'll be in there," he said, pointing to the nearest cafe, rather grateful that he wasn't going with them.

  


Tifa was no longer surprised by her luck. It was a normal reaction, really, to glance back at the sound of the jingling bell above the door. But there he stood, setting his sunglasses atop his head and giving his hair one highly dignified swipe. And when his pale eyes fell on her, he didn't seem shocked, either.

Reno sauntered over, casually cutting through air that was rich with the aroma of coffee and baked goods, and fell into line behind her. "Miss Lockheart..." His words were the rawest silk. "What a pleasant surprise."

The irony in his smile did not elude her, so she said nothing. There were hints of darkness under his eyes, and in this light his irises were watercolor-faint. _He looks hungover_, she rightly guessed. _ Figures _.

Tifa was about to turn back around when some guy cut in front of her. "Hey!" she cried indignantly, and he didn't budge.

"What a jerk," Reno exhaled, and she could feel his cool breath almost parting her hair. Lowering his voice, he added offhandedly, "Want me to bump him off for you?"

Tifa whirled around, astonishment filling her eyes. "Who do you think you are?" she hushed him, fiercely whispering. He was lucky no one else had heard.

Reno shrugged, looking quite innocent. "Ohh, I don't know... your chauffeur?" he replied coolly. When he saw the look on her face, he couldn't help but smile a little.

"Believe me, last night is never going to happen again. I'm never, _ ever _ going to ask you--"

"Miss Lockheart, you're holding up the line!" he restlessly interrupted. He shared sympathy with the impatient cashier, shrugging helplessly, looking appalled with Tifa's conduct as if he didn't know what had gotten into her.

Resisting the urge to say something to him, Tifa ordered a coffee, paid for her drink, and crossed to the other end of to counter to wait as they prepared it. She was still fuming. What was it with the 'Miss Lockheart' business all of a sudden? It was annoying, that was for sure. But she was beginning to realize what he was trying to do...

"A large mocha, please," Reno said to the cashier. Bouncing once on his heels, he looked over to Tifa deliberately, adding with much gusto: "Non-alcoholic!"

This warranted an odd look from the cashier and everyone else within earshot, but he didn't seem to care. He kept his gaze steady on her, pointed, bitter, and smug.

Tifa looked away. His sly eyes and ulterior calculating were starting to get to her, but she still hoped he would leave her alone. She just wanted to get her coffee and get out of here.

But it wasn't long before he stood next to her again in the pick-up area, ravenously enjoying an espresso brownie. When he saw her slightly bewildered expression, he took the liberty to reasonably explain. "I haven't eaten since last Wednesday."

Tifa sighed and turned her head. She was trying to ignore him, but it was difficult.

For the next silent moment, Reno finished off his brownie with relish, not once taking his eyes off her. "Ya know what?" he said in a voice loud enough for only her to hear, over the commotion of blenders and clattering dishes. "I just can't WAIT for work tomorrow. 'Cause if there's one thing I love more than killin' people, it's paying child support for my seven illegitimate children!"

Finally, she received her coffee. "Thank you," she murmured, and without another look at Reno, she left.

Back out on the street, with the breeze and the seagulls and the white concrete, Tifa anxiously quickened her pace, angry with Reno and a bit frustrated with herself. She knew exactly what he was trying to do: he was trying to put her on a guilt trip for the things she'd said last night. And admittedly, begrudgingly, it was working.

  


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Post-Chapter Notes: ...well, October to January. That's a new low. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and my birthday all went by, and in that time I didn't update once. I've officially hit rock bottom and started digging.

If you're wondering what took so friggin' long, it wasn't merely the writer's block. I spent a while trying to get to the bottom of it because it was driving me INSANE. So I now have a collection of all these writer's instruction books, all of which have conflicting information on curing it.

So what did I learn? It's self-consciousness, that's all it is! And it certainly didn't help that I didn't write for weeks on end; it threw me all out of the loop and worsened things. But in a book written by my favorite author, he says he wrote 1000 words a day since he was twelve. So I'm trying to write every day to keep my mind fresh, even if it is only a few paragraphs. I'll never, ever take so long with updates again!!

It feels good to be back in the loop, though. Much love to the reviewers! I'm surprised you stuck with me... 


	5. Cockroach Theory

** Chapter 5 **

So far, so good.

Reno complacently smiled to himself as he turned the ignition, cutting off the sound of the purring engine and acid jazz on the radio. He'd been sure to park between Dragen's crummy car and another vehicle that he at least knew was not Tifa Lockheart's. A most annoying feeling of dread had been heavy and muted in his chest all day, and tonight he was going to avoid her as much as possible.

He pushed his door open with careless force, the edge of it hitting the side of Dragen's car and leaving a good-sized dent. Reno paused to survey it. The car was parked facing the other direction, so it was on the driver's side -- but Dragen would likely be none the wiser. His vehicle was already a piece of junk, all beat up and scratched. Reno discovered that it wasn't so bad after all; the dent could very easily blend in with one of the rust spots... if you looked at it hard enough. With your eyes crossed.

So with no intention of letting his co-worker know of the damage inflicted to his car, he set off walking the long block to the Jukebox.

The sun, well-obscured by buildings, was just beginning to dip into the watery horizon, to spill out all its light and color into the sea that sent a breeze to gently part his hair. It was turning out to be a fine night. Aside from the upsetting fact that Tifa Lockheart still existed, he was feeling fine... not great, but alright.

Things were so different a week ago; they were better. Now there was the reappearance of what's-her-face, of course, but also his old comrades. He didn't mind their company -- he had to admit he actually missed it something fierce, but in catching up with Rude and Elena he found they wanted to get serious: there were some things they wanted to talk about, and Reno just wasn't going to go there.

So he wanted night to fall even more. He could feel a shorter fuse for her being here, reminding him and keeping it all from bleeding into twilight, dark where he couldn't tell the difference. He had to lose it somewhere. Underneath the past was always pressing, all cracked but never broken... he couldn't let go for long. 

He needed the night even more now.

He could see Dragen approaching, the dying light catching the silver piercings on his worried face, making him look more like a scratched photograph. There was a guitar in its soft case strapped to his back, and he was frantically searching his pockets.

"Why're you coming back this way?" Reno asked when he was close enough.

He paused long enough to give him a wry look. "...can't find any picks. Maybe there's some in my car."

With no meaning to bring up the dent, Reno wordlessly watched as he passed by, eying his guitar in particular. "Hey, can I--"

"No."

He scowled at the back of the departing Dragen. Musicians were flaky and weird like that, proud of callused fingertips and overprotective of their instruments.

He hadn't resumed walking for long when he saw her coming his way, and he was not surprised. Her hair was so long and dark and fluid in the breeze, amber eyes warming artificial light. Apparently, this was not just another chance encounter.

She stopped short of him and met his eyes with certain confidence, bold and intent on something. And it was obvious that she wasn't about to move out of his way.

Reno was surprised that he had not developed an eye-twitch by now. "_Well_?" he started, making no effort to mask his annoyance.

Suddenly her jaw wasn't so firm; her face softened but her eyes were even more determined. "I just wanted to... apologize," she very evenly managed.

Apologize?

He rolled his head to one side, highly suspicious, searching for deceiving hints and wondering why her arms were behind her back as if she were hiding something. He didn't appreciate her tone of voice, either.

She pressed on. "I mean... I was really out of line for saying those things. And you even helped me that night... I should have been more grateful. It's hardly my place to judge, and I'd just forgotten -- I guess I never considered..." She trailed off when she saw how displeased he looked with where she was going. Moving her slender arms from behind her back, she held out her apology gift. "...I'm sorry."

Reno was somewhat surprised by this gesture. He cocked an eyebrow and dubiously looked at the lid of the tin container in her hands, taking advantage of the nearest street light. It had cute little happy moogles of simple lines and airbrushed pink cheeks, and from their scarves and the cheesy platitude around the rim, it also appeared to have something of a Christmas theme. He scoffed at this, considering pointing out to Miss Lockheart that it was late summer.

It was quite possibly one of the dumbest things he'd ever been offered. What the heck could he do with a cheesy holiday tin? But then it occurred to him that it likely contained cookies of some sort.

In that case...

"Miss Lockheart, you couldn't have been more right," Reno began righteously. "You were very out of line for saying what you said. And yes, you should have acted _much_ more grateful that I had gone out of my way to help you. Thank you for acknowledging that it was all your fault, but--" At this point he reached out and took the tin from her hands. "I don't need your apologies. Or your pity."

And with a curt nod, just like he did before ditching a battle with AVALANCHE, he turned and walked back the way he came, leaving behind a shocked and empty-handed Tifa.

~*~**~***~**~*~

"...the heck is this?" Reno murmured as he took off the lid. Having gone back in his car for lack of a better place to go, he was still contemplating the tin of cookies on his lap.

He reckoned there were a few layers, maybe four, with wax paper separating them each. The cookies themselves were very curious -- they appeared to be chocolate with finely chopped pecans surrounding a thumb print of melted caramel in the center. Very intricate... he wondered why she went to all the trouble. Still highly skeptical, he took one and popped it in his mouth, chewing with cynical relish, shrugging off impression.

Then he swore.

These were good. These were really frickin' good. Think-I've-died-and-gone-to-the-Lifestream good. He ate two more. It was so wonderful and wrong...

"Hey, Reno!"

Annoyed by the interruption, he turned to see that Dragen had discovered the dent in his car. "Did you do this?" he demanded to know, gesturing.

Rapturously finishing off his fourth cookie, he couldn't deny it. "You don't need to make such a big deal out of it... it's not _that_ noticeable."

"It -- it's not NOTICEABLE?!" cried Dragen, wildly pointing at the horrid scratched dent.

Reno shrugged, caring less about the damage he'd done to somebody's car than he did about the insanely good cookies he was eating. "You drive a skankmobile, anyway."

Unable to put a profound sentence together, his co-worker hopped up and down in frustration, faint jingling of zippers and loose change, making flustered little Dragen noises. Because he was not saying anything comprehensible, Reno promptly ignored him and went back to what he'd been doing.

He ate a few more, savoring the wonderful contrast of tastes and textures in his mouth, allowing the thought to cross his mind that he should make Tifa Lockheart angry more often. Then he realized what he was doing and kicked his dashboard.

"I _hate_ her!" he declared rapturously.

It was highly probable that if he didn't stop now, he could very easily eat the entire contents of the cookie tin in one sitting. And it was bad that he had to remind himself that the marvelous little things had been prepared by the enemy.

For a split second Reno was torn between going to work or staying here and eating every last cookie -- screw work, Mondays were slow, anyway -- but he snapped himself out of it, being a Turk with the self-control to put the lid back on and throw the tin under the back seat, disgusted not at all by the cookies but with himself.

  


...usually, when you don't accept somebody's apology, you give their gift back, too.

Tifa wasn't too sure of the etiquette here in Junon, but she had a hunch it was just the moral code of a self-centered Turk.

Nothing had changed, and she was tired of it. Reno seemed to have made it a point to pretend she didn't exist. Earlier, he had come back behind the bar and grabbed himself a beer, ignoring her very openly as he leaned around her to get it.

Through the first part of the night he stayed at the far end of the bar with a faithful little band of people hanging around him -- a blonde girl who spent too much time at the tanning salon and a brunette with incredibly thin eyebrows fawned over his every word, especially... _His number one fangirls_, she dryly thought. He was easy in his bearing, in the way he draped his words across their sentences and leaned over the counter a little more when he laughed. Tifa stole glances every now and then, and sometimes she caught his incriminating eye.

Later she was starting to get it, when the show started and she heard it all from the bar. He was the MC, she'd gathered, but in hearing him warm up the audience and announce sets, she realized how endearing he was to people... just not to her. But come intermission, he was nowhere to be found.

"Where's Reno?" Fake-Bake Girl and No Eyebrows demanded to know, wedging themselves in between the men that always crowded around her. Their heavily mascaraed eyes were narrowed and their tones were identical, almost accusatory.

Tifa had only recently begun to get the impression that some girls here didn't like her for some reason. "I have no idea," she said slowly, a bit confused as to why they seemed to suspect she had anything to do with him.

When they rolled their blue eyes and stormed off in a huff, she turned to Dragen. "Can I ask you a favor?"

He looked up from his beer, wide-eyed. "Uhh.... okay.." he managed, fortunately remembering how to talk -- sort of.

"I'll only be a minute... can you fill in for me?"

"Can I EVER!" he exclaimed, some nearby patrons chuckling as he jumped up from his seat.

Tifa smiled gratefully. "Thank you!" she said earnestly, and promptly left the bar.

It didn't take very long at all to find Reno. He was up on the stage in the auditorium, completely oblivious to her silent entrance. He was wearing Dragen's guitar by the strap, playing blind chords and not looking happy at all with the sound of them.

Absently sliding his slender fingers down the frets, he frowned at the amplifier in thought, then leaned forward and flipped a switch. When he played an open chord, it came out distorted; rather pleased with that, he tried to play a song. He gave up a moment later, and Tifa was barely close enough to hear him murmur. 

"Damn rock stars make it look so easy..."

He looked up and saw her then, his left hand wrapped around the rosewood fingerboard. "Oh..." he effectively sueded his disdain. "It's you."

Tifa stopped in front of the stage and gazed back up at him, crossing her arms under her chest. She had one eyebrow raised in skepticism, almost mimicking his tone. "Dragen let you use his guitar?"

Reno shrugged apathetically. "Nope." He took great care in raising the strap over his head and leaning the instrument against the amplifier, switching off the distortion to cover all tracks. "So what brings you in here, Miss Lockheart?" he turned back to face her, grinning slyly. "Did you want to see pictures of my bastard children?"

"Cut it out, Reno." She wasn't going to let him pull this again, and she wasn't going to raise her voice before he did. "You owe me an apology."

He snorted. "For WHAT? I helped you!"

"By driving like a maniac?"

"I did that on purpose because you deserved it." Looking down at her, he had to swipe back all the dark red that fell into his vision. "I'm a very graceful individual. I don't go around falling out of chairs."

"Is THIS what it's all about?" Tifa exclaimed. "I hurt your _pride_?!"

"_No_." With a fluid motion he was crouched down at the edge of the stage, leaning into her, closer to eye-level. "See, I DON'T LIKE YOU. You don't quite seem to have realized it, but it's true -- if you think we're going to become good friends, you can't be more mistaken. Up until the other night I thought you were gone from my life forever, and I preferred it that way. I used to not care, but somewhere along the line it became very personal."

Tifa looked about ready to slap him; he was almost surprised she hadn't already. He hadn't forgotten -- she was misleading in the way she looked too soft, too gentle-spirited to pack a punch.

Her eyes were really smoldering now, shadows defining the soft planes of her face and cast long under her dark lashes. Reno could admit that she was easy on the eyes, but that didn't have to mean jack. He wasn't Rude, after all...

"Hey," he began, frowning with the occurrence of a thought. "Shouldn't you be working?"

She said nothing, backing away when he jumped down from the stage.

Reno only closed the extra space between them, his eyes darkened with resentment. "What is it, Miss Lockheart, you think you think you have special privileges? Just because you saved the planet doesn't mean you can screw around on the job." He grabbed her upper arm, beginning to lead her back out.

"Let go of me!" Tifa demanded, giving way to a few steps as she tried vainly to pull back.

Reno paused and looked at her with faint and rancorous triumph, smoothing over one word with velvet defiance. "No."

Tifa reached out with her free hand, grabbed a fistful of his hair, and pulled until his neck inclined at an uncomfortable angle.

"Oh... THAT'S real mature."

Reno came to regret saying that. His head snapped down with one hard yank, and he smartly let go of Tifa's arm. She had been plenty angry, but his sarcastic remark set her off. "You've sure got a lot of room to talk about maturity!" she laid into him. "You've been nothing but a jerk to me! How long did you think I was going to put up with it?"

He remained pretty much bent over, his head pounding, biting his tongue. Fury seared his veins, heated the blood that went to his head. Turk instinct, the dangerous urge to strike back at her, cause real harm... he clenched his fists, useless at his sides. No, he told himself. It was dead on his hands...

"For once you have nothing to say for yourself?" asked Tifa, who had been expecting a reply. She straightened herself, exhaling, all the while keeping a grip on Reno's hair. "Well then, shall we go back and see everybody?"

It occurred to him that she was not going to let go. "NO," he strongly implored, but she didn't honor his wishes, and with a sharp intake of breath through his teeth he had to follow. She didn't walk very slow, either; he had to keep up or risk getting hair ripped out of his throbbing head -- worse, he didn't want anyone to see him like this. But she came to a stop, mercifully, in front of the double doors.

"Listen," she started again as he came to a clumsy halt. "I'm not too hot on you, either -- but I'm not gonna deal with this anymore. We don't have to be friends, but I'm not going to be your enemy... it's ridiculous." She looked down at her fist in all that scarlet, suddenly aware of how nice it felt between her fingers.

But she let go, and he slowly eased back into his regular posture, one hand gingerly checking to be sure his hair was still intact. He eyed her with dark wariness now, almost sulkily, and his mouth was a soft crooked line.

"I don't want this and you don't, either. No more nonsense," she declared, a truce of sorts. "Got it?"

Reno so fervently agreed he was nodding his head in every direction.

"Good," Tifa smiled. "Let's go." Reno followed suit because he knew better than to defy her.

The people at the bar were awful glad for his return, but moreso for Tifa; apparently Dragen didn't make out to be a very good or pretty bartender. When she reclaimed her job, she asked Reno, "Would you like a drink?"

Keeping his eyes on her, he turned his head a little, still feeling a bit sore about it all. "Nahhhh, I--"

"Sit down."

"Okay."

Reno plopped down onto a bar stool, and she turned around to fix a drink. He shook his head as he watched her, considered his tingling scalp, and contemplated with some silent pensiveness this wonderment that was Tifa Lockheart.

  


______________________________

Post-Chapter Notes: Accck! *dodges tomatoes* I know, I took a long time again!

I had difficulty... as I always do. There was supposed to be another character but I couldn't manage him in, and we were also supposed to take a look at how AVALANCHE is faring without Tifa (through the eyes of Vincent). But meh, I'm over the limit as it is. I had to cut it off.

x_x This chapter, I don't know... my eyes aren't fresh. Everything sounds cheesy. I'm really not feeling too hot about it -- or the next chapter, considering I have to go in for SURGERY in the first week of April. And that's not much to look forward to. I don't know when I can update. But hopefully, one of these days I'll have ironed out and put together what I have planned for the story... because I don't right now, and that's what hangs me up.

Er, well... that's about it. But there is something I'm happy about... much love to the reviewers! You guys rock. =D


	6. Denial Comfort

**Chapter 6**

The flashing WALK sign and the red stoplights mirrored upside-down in the rainwashed street as a breeze passed in a cooler gust of humid air. Reno stood next to Elena on the corner as he demurely checked all sides of traffic, then took her arm in his. She was a bit puzzled by this, but figured it was the more chivalrous side of Turk training she didn't often see. They were, after all, in a more upscale district in Upper Junon.

But much to her shock, once they stepped off the curb together, Reno broke into a top-speed run. Attached by the arm, Elena was forced to keep up with him; another breeze picked up in her ears as she ran her fastest in too long, scuffing rainwater on pavement with black Turk heels as the city constellation blurred and rushed past.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Reno yelled the whole way across.

Once they reached the other side, he had to duck and cover as Elena started wailing on him, cursing and hitting and shoving at his back as their speed dwindled fast and they both ran out of air. He came to lean heavily against the nearest lamppost, panting, but his furious comrade was not quite ready to give up beating him and telling him off with breath that she didn't have, either.

"Why... did you _do_ that..." she gasped, driving one last weak fist into his side. He was too busy gulping air to reply, and it wasn't long before she fell against him, too. "...urgh...... we're... SO out of shape..."

Reno continued to hug the lamppost, choosing to ignore the odd looks a few haughty pedestrians were giving them. "Speak," he huffed, his cheek against the cold metal pole, "for yourself..." His knees buckled, and they both slid a couple inches closer to ground.

The heaving pair of Turks soon realized they were really making a spectacle of themselves, so they let off the post and resumed walking the street. "I thought we were about to get run over!" Elena said, attempting to shove him again. "Why did you have to yell like that?"

Reno fell silent as he considered this, passing through several of the golden pools under the streetlights before he spoke again. "I guess it's another one of those sad things," he went on slowly, carefully choosing his words, "that I find myself doing these days... where I kinda have to create _suspense_ for myself..."

Incensed as she was for being dragged over a crosswalk, Elena had to agree. "I guess I know what you mean," she sighed. "Life _is_ pretty boring now. There's no more excitement... and our lives have become so _sedentary_. I mean, I've gained four pounds since Meteor!"

Staring ahead, Reno assumed the same miserable expression as the blonde at his side. "I wish _I_ could gain four pounds," he said rather truthfully.

She glowered in envy. "So now we're going to meet up with Rude so I can fork through a salad and watch you two eat steak. Honestly, sometimes I wonder why I put myself through it..."

Reno frowned, slightly offended. "Come on, 'Lena. If you don't wanna hang out with us boys tonight, that's fine." He waved his hand dismissively, his tone quite condescending. "You can go watch your silly little romance movies where the guy and the girl fall in love, and then one of them gets cancer or hit by a car or something. I'm sure Rude will understand."

She took a second to glare at his profile. "There's no point in going off by myself! I HAVE no friends, except for Rude and _you_."

Reno did not appreciate the way she looked at him then, or the way she enunciated that last word. He frowned his disapproval, but decided not to pursue it. "Do you know what's _really_ weird, though?" he asked her with a sudden change in volume so that only she could hear. "We can't keep our titles anymore. I mean, sometimes I look at Rude and I have to remind myself that he's no longer Rude of the Turks, he's Rude the..... Cell Phone... Retailer." Disbelief melded with disgust on his face, as the sound and reality of it was just too strange. "And you would be... Elena the Unemployed. No, wait--" He immediately rejected it, trying to come up with a more fitting title.

Wary of how fast Reno's mind worked, she tried to take advantage of his silence. "No, really, I d--"

"Elena the Local Charity Case!" he concluded with rather proud accomplishment. "Now THAT has a nice ring to it, if I say so myself." His sly grin cut wider before she sent another fist his way, and his laughter was loose and unhurried. There was a certain lightness to his eyes which the night seemed to have brought out.

"What are _you_, then?" she shot back with residual indignation. "Reno the Smart Aleck Host of Some Vaguely Described Comedy Joint?"

He looked at her in mild horror, as if that was the most vulgar thing he'd ever heard. "I prefer the term 'Master of Ceremonies,'" he said with a highly imperious arch in one eyebrow that matched his dignified tone.

Though Elena's side-swept hair fell over her right eye, she continued to watch him after he faced ahead again. "Just where is it that you work?"

Alarmed, Reno turned to look at her, slowing to a stop as she did, too. For a moment they just stared at each other, long enough for Elena to develop suspicion; then he raised his arm and pointed in some direction. "Um.... that way."

"I mean, what's it called? Why haven't you told us anything about it?" She questioned, watching as he shifted in a way that was not another one of his comfortable mannerisms.

"Because... it... never came up?" Reno tried. His eyes were wider and somewhat blank, and his mouth was very terse. It was obvious that he was holding something back; he made a terrible liar when caught off-guard.

And Elena was on to him. "Well, it has now," she pressed. "Can Rude and I come by and see you sometime?"

"Nnnno."

"Why _not_?"

Reno did not provide an answer. He continued walking, Elena right on his heels. "WHY do you have to make things so difficult?!" she cried, frustrated. "It was an _innocent question_, Reno! You refuse to talk about ANYTHING -- ever since we came back, you've been so secretive!" Helpless, she watched as he didn't respond. He stopped at the entrance of the steakhouse, but she grabbed his sleeve just as he opened the door. "What are you _hiding_?!"

She very badly wanted to know -- she hated being left out of everything just because she came into the picture years too late. She could remember Reno when Tseng died and everyone's eyes were dry, and he still went on easy but his breath was always sweet. She wondered what kind of world of the Turks she was left out of, that whenever she asked, they would exchange a long glance and Reno would decline while Rude was too obliged to let it go. It had been a couple of years with them and she still didn't know anything, not even how Reno got his scars. But this time, not even Rude was in on it... what was it that Reno had to keep so exclusively to himself?

And now he looked at her, his eyes finding blue somewhere to reflect, favoring cerulean over Lifestream depths. Something was softer and leaden about them, because she had disrupted the calm amusement that had been present in his eyes. Still, the way he leaned against the door was too laid-back, easiness sloping down his shoulders. But there was an almost dangerous air of sternness about him that was familiar; the set of his mouth even reminded her of Tseng. "Rude's waiting for us," he said with closed intonation. "Are you coming, or not?"

She met his gaze squarely, caught the finer edge of his challenge. He knew it, and she did, too: once she walked in, she would lose. Once they sat down with Rude, it would become two against one.

They wouldn't speak of it again for the rest of the night.

Reeve was an overworked man; Tifa knew the fact. She was aware that he was busy enough to have to bring his cat to work, for instance, but up until tonight, the full extent of just _how_ busy he was had not struck her.

She noticed how he kept stifling yawns the entire time they were out; and when he bade her farewell at her door, she could have sworn his eyes didn't blink at quite the same instant. But what really drove it home was when she asked him inside; he didn't decline, though as she pulled him along in he laughed dryly, with a very strange edge that bordered on maniacal. "Who needs _sleep_?" he said with exhausted sarcasm.

Tifa paused and turned to look at him, observing his slightly disheveled hair, the not-so-neatly trimmed goatee, the collar of his suit that needed adjustment. It occurred to her that this man technically ran the city of Junon, and the demand of the job prevented him from having a decent night's sleep for too long. How could she have been so selfish?

"Oh my goodness... Reeve... I'm so sorry!" She smoothed his collar, guiltily fumbling as if she'd done harm. "I won't keep you any longer," she assured him. "But before I forget, I have something for you -- wait right here!"

She rushed off, leaving him standing there in her living room that had a warm and terribly cozy country feel, which unfortunately was not helpful in keeping poor Reeve awake. Strangely enough, the sound of her faint rummaging in the kitchen was beginning to lull him to sleep -- but considering he'd been awake for nearly twenty straight hours, anything would. He leaned slightly forward as he yielded to the weight on his eyes, and his head folded in toward his chest like a disheartened Cait Sith. His conscience thinned as he unknowingly fell deeper into some wonderful semblance of sleep... but then he jerked awake again, finding a rather large tupperware container placed in his hands.

Reeve blinked furiously, half-bewildered. "What the...? What am I going to do with..." Lifting the lid, he made a rough estimation. "Three... dozen... cookies?"

Tifa shrugged. "You can always take them to work with you."

Though his eyes complained, he narrowed them on her and stretched out his mouth in growing realization. He was fully aware of her cooking fits, and he was also certain why. "You'd feel better if you'd just talk to them, Tifa. They're worried sick -- and I know you are, too."

She nodded in terse admittance, one hand on her hip. "Maybe... sometimes." It was harder than she'd thought it would be, having no contact with the rest of AVALANCHE. She couldn't help but wonder how they were holding up without her. How was Marlene? Was Yuffie keeping out of trouble? Was Nanaki staying away from the gas oven?

"So call them up, at least!" Reeve couldn't help it if he was beginning to sound mechanical; it was a mixture of staying awake too long and telling her the same thing every day.

"No," Tifa asserted. "I had to get away in the first place! I was sick of being the nice girl who smiled all the time and FED everybody."

"Please," Reeve scoffed, feeling slightly more awake for the moment. "After Cloud, you kept them together. What would they do without you?"

Despite the mention of Cloud, Tifa gave him a very exasperated look. "I taught Vincent how to make risotto," she said. "I'm _sure_ they'll live."

"You KNOW that's not what I was...... wait, what?" Reeve had to pause as he was sidetracked by the mental image of the very stoic Vincent wearing an apron and clutching a wooden spoon in his claw, inquiring if there was any arborio rice left.

Once he could shake off the odd thought, he decided that he had no energy to pursue another argument with Tifa. It would be too predictable, as he knew they would just quibble over superficial things; but he felt there was something much more than that, under the surface, which she was deliberately avoiding... and it was kind of a sad thought that he was the only one who noticed.

"I'm going home," he said briskly. "Good night..... and thanks for the hundred cookies."

Tifa did not object; she wasn't going to inconvenience Reeve any longer. She simply waved goodbye, but wound up having to guide him a bit to the right so he could safely walk through the doorway without hitting the frame.

The ocean laid out sprawling under the boundless sky as the hosts of stars touched the crests of the water with silver. The overnight ship to Junon tore shimmering lines which the moonlight helped fill in, as well as outlining two passengers on board who had isolated themselves. One sat on the deck, lolling her head, halfway between nausea and fatigue, as the other stood leaning against the rail, rigid and deliberate, but with the tattered hem of a red cape pulled over the side, fluttering and tracing the free edge of the wind....

Meanwhile, in those late hours of the night, a very much shirtless and groggy Reno stumbled into his kitchen, out of bed with another unsettling dream to blame. He made his way over, rubbing bleary, embittered eyes, stopping short of the several bottles of wine on his counter. Reaching out to them, he scooted aside the merlot and the shiraz to expose a certain holiday-themed tin that was not previously in view.

Reno picked it up with more care than necessary. He settled down on the floor and removed the lid in eagerness that only indicated itself through the haste in which he did so. He then proceeded to eat one of the marvelous little cookies Tifa had prepared... and then another, not quite finding the rest for his residual anxiety until now. But he had to be careful; they weren't going to last forever. The mortality of the cookies had struck him, and it was particularly depressing.

Just one more, he told himself. No, two -- two more, and he was going to put them away...

Really.

---------------------------------

That Sorry List of Excuses You Find at the End of Every Chapter: Eh... heh heh........ urgh.

Erm, I'm sorry? It's been a crazy... however-many-months, and it didn't have nearly as much to do with writer's block than it had to do with lacking the time and privacy. That's not to say it wasn't difficult; I got so frustrated that those last two scenes were actually written in one sitting. I've had to neglect reviewing some people's stories, and.... yeah. I feel pretty rotten.

But... better late then never, eh? nervous laughter But I think I should take this time to thank the people who gave me encouragement, and that includes the people who never stopped poking me... you know who you are.

I swear it, I won't take this long for the next one.. actually, I think I'm going to have fun writing it. Next chapter sets forth a chain of events that will ultimately blow Reno's cover, and it's all started by those looking for Tifa (it shouldn't be that difficult to guess who they are). Doesn't look like the conflict will be quite over just yet...

Anyway.... feel free to drop me a line. While I'm not feeling very worthy, I'm eternally thankful. And I swear I'll never sink this low again. x-x (Last-second-note: Hmm. It appears that does not like my underscores.... I hate quick-edit.) 


	7. Intervention Long Overdue

**Chapter 7**

Reno woke up with a post-it note on his forehead.

It was unfortunate that he didn't notice this until he had read all of the comics section and half his favorite humor column, and was well into his second cup of coffee. At first he was mildly alarmed, touching the edges with his fingertips before realizing what it was. Feeling just a bit silly, he peeled the little note off his forehead. There, in tiny, recognizable flowery script:

_We came by but you wouldn't wake up, you bum. By now Rude is at work and I'm job-hunting all ALONE! _(sad face)_ Call me and we'll meet up! _(heart)_ - Elena_

"No chance in hell," Reno muttered. Then he noticed that something was written on the back, too. He turned it over, and what he found on the other side drained the blood from his face.

_P.S. You'll have to get more of those cookies! They're GOOD.

* * *

_

The Junon sky was clear and bright through the window of Reeve's office. He sat at his desk, in front of strewn papers, his dozing cat, and a container of cookies, well into the process of tying his red tie. This would have been fine and well, had his hands not been frozen in their position for the past ten minutes - and had his head not hung down, as he was fast asleep.

The speaker phone beeped. "Ah-!" Reeve started, with a great jostle that annoyed his cat. Growing aware of his surroundings, he calmed down, rather regretting that he was at work already and not still in bed at home. He pressed a button to answer, mustering his composure. "Yes?"

"There's someone in to see you," the secretary told him, tones splintered through the speaker.

Reeve frowned, shaking some of the weary clouds in his head. "But I don't have anyone scheduled for-"

"I know, sir," she interrupted, "but she says it's an emergency. She also says you're old friends."

He paused, staring down at his phone. "All right," he said unknowingly, his mind washed over with exhaustion and bewilderment. "Bring her in..."

Standing up, he remembered to finish the tie he'd started a while ago. He rushed to adjust it just as his office door flew open.

"Reeve!" Elena exclaimed as he came around from behind his desk. He tried to match her smile, though he couldn't quite shake the surreal feeling he got looking at her. Elena looked pretty if a bit weary, and wearing a trench jacket, dress slacks and heels, she looked dressed for business. When they met, she pulled him into an unexpected hug.

This was quite bewildering to Reeve, because he honestly did not know her that well - he never really hung out with any of the Turks, for that matter. That whole "old friends" claim was obviously a ploy to get in to see him. But all the same, he did nothing to escape this sudden embrace, because Elena was warm and reminded him of a nice down comforter.

After a moment, she had to pull away. "So how have you been?" she asked him, as if they were old pals who hadn't seen each other in a while.

"Oh..." Reeve shrugged. "Fine... you?"

"All right, for the most part."

He nodded. "And Reno and Rude are...?"

"Jerks."

Reeve stared, but then nodded again as if he understood. "What brings you here?" he asked, getting straight to the point.

Elena bit her lip. "Well.. they might have something to do with it," she began, a bit deflated. To make herself more comfortable, she sat down on the edge of his desk. "See, we've been hurting... financially. It's really difficult for an honest Turk to land a decent job these days..."

"I can imagine," Reeve said, some involuntary sympathy finding its way in.

"It takes a miracle, actually. Reno and Rude have gotten lucky, and I'm still unemployed! They won't let me live it down..."

Reeve sat back in his swivel chair, beginning to see where she was going with this.

Elena was growing more and more distraught. "You _have_ to help me out, Reeve! I don't know what to do - I can't even get my lies straight in my applications! I'm sick of feeling useless, I'm sick of lying around doing nothing and eating all the time and not having any friends... I live with Rude, for goodness sake! I guess he's tolerable and he pays the bills, but he _always_ sides with Reno and I _hate_ it when he drinks the orange juice right out of the carton and - and... ...the boys tell me I could talk them to sleep, but I never believed them until _NOW!"_

Reeve jerked awake again. "W-what! _No_, I'm just-"

"-are those cookies?" Elena asked, blinking at the half-open container on his desk.

Reeve blinked, too. "Oh... yes, they are. Would you like one?"

Elena, who had no willpower against chocolate, would have taken one even if he hadn't offered. She took the lid off all the way, frowning at how very familiar they looked - rather like the ones she and Rude found (and gorged on) at Reno's this morning. "Where do you get these from?" she asked, already stuffing one into her mouth and looking for a nutrition facts label. "How many calories do they have?" She helped herself to another cookie. "Urgh..." she muttered under her breath. "They're so good I have to cross my eyes..."

"Well, I don't know about the calories," Reeve said. "But they had better be good... Tifa made them."

Elena gagged on a pecan. "Tifa... L-Lockheart?"

"Yes," replied Reeve, who was completely oblivious to the can of worms he was opening. "She's been in town for a while now."

Elena stared down into the container, considering what this meant. If Tifa made these cookies and Reno had some...

She swore sharply. "I KNEW it!" she cried out.

"You knew... what?" asked Reeve, who was so lost.

Elena was too livid to have heard him. "That - lying son of a..." she noticed Reeve again. "I'm sorry, I have to go." Hastily getting up and snatching her purse, she made for the door, having completely forgotten about begging for a job.

"Bye?" Reeve offered as she exited. He found himself alone again, completely in the dark about what was going on. He was sure something strange was up; he was going to ask Tifa the next time he saw her... whenever that would be... ...

* * *

Miserably, Reno observed the damage left by his now-ex-friends. In the aftermath of Rude and Elena's merciless massacre of the cookies, he now had to come to terms with the fact that he had only two left in the tin. _Two_! How was he going to survive? 

It wasn't as if he could ask Tifa for more of them. He had gone over it so many times in his head and there was no conceivable way he could request more cookies without implying that he enjoyed them or admitting that he needed them to live. And there was no baked good in all of Junon that could fill up the hole left in him now. He was screwed.

_And it's all their fault_, Reno thought heatedly. _I'm never speaking to Rude or Elena ever again for as long as I li - until my paycheck runs out_. Sinking deeper into the floor, he cradled the too-empty tin in his lap. It didn't feel like a special occasion to nibble even a little bit of one cookie. But he reckoned he could still lick some of the caramel stuck to the wax paper...

* * *

Rude sighed as the cell phone in his pocket began vibrating for about the fourth time. Slipping it out to check, he was not surprised to see that it was yet again Elena. But he couldn't answer her call - didn't she know he was at work? 

He continued to stare at the caller ID quizzically, until the bell above the door jingled as somebody entered the store. "One moment," he murmured, dropping his phone back in the pocket of his black suit jacket. Ambling around a display case, he looked up to greet the customer. "Can I h-" he began, but the words died in his throat... by the next moment they were unretrievable. "Um..."

He couldn't recover. He was staring at Tifa Lockheart.

But she didn't immediately recognize him; for company policy he was not wearing his sunglasses. She returned a mildly incredulous gaze, but soon enough the realization dawned on her face along with astonishment. As if it hit her all at once, she gasped.

* * *

After his first meeting of the day, Reeve sat at his desk, typing a letter to the mayor of Costa del Sol on his laptop. He was doing a fine job with the heading, address, and opening paragraph, as well as the accomplishment of some thirteen pages of the letter _g_... with his forehead. He had fallen asleep on the keyboard. 

Again, the speaker phone beeped. "Guh!" Reeve cried unintelligibly, bolting upright. "I'm awake!"

His only answer was the cool-green unappreciative gaze of his cat. Feeling rather silly, he went ahead and took the call.

"You have two more visitors," his secretary told him.

Reeve was exasperated beyond belief, and lacking sleep did not help his mood. "No," he said rather unprofessionally, stubbornly shaking his head and gesturing as if he'd washed his hands of them forever. "No more visitors."

"But they say it's an emergency-"

"No more emergencies."

"I think you'd better take them!" she insisted. "They're from AVALANCHE."

Reeve, who had been repeatedly poking his fingers into his eye sockets in attempt to relieve the stinging exhaustion, paused. In the beat of silence that followed, he could have laughed and cried at the same time. "Send them in," he relented, his voice muffled because his face was hidden in his hands. All of a sudden everything was too much and too fast for him. He knew why they were coming, he knew why they were here-

The door creaked open, and in came Vincent, followed by Yuffie. Reeve quickly pulled his face up and smiled at them.

No matter his surroundings, Vincent always seemed to take some enigma and shadow with him. His mouth was covered by his mantle, his voice was distinctively quiet, and his crimson eyes were steadily dispassionate. There was also a firmness to his brow, which was probably brought on by the company of Yuffie, who looked around the office before settling her gaze on Reeve.

Positively dreading what he was in for, Reeve went ahead with quaint greetings. "Hello, Vincent," he nodded. "Yuffie..."

The smirking ninja, uttering "hey" in acknowledgement, was rather looking at the unkempt and sleep-deprived Reeve as if he were a joke.

For the sake of occupying his hands, he fumbled with his tie again in some attempt to look more presentable. "Sorry, I must look like a mess-"

"_I'll_ say," Yuffie said bluntly.

"We're looking for Tifa," cut in Vincent, who obviously had no patience for small talk.

Reeve half-smiled, wryly. "Of course," he said, looking up at them again with the sunlight in his brown eyes, a little bitter. "No one bothered to keep in touch with me otherwise..."

The ex-Turk watched him for a moment. "I'm sorry," he said with apparent impassiveness. Apologies from Vincent Valentine were never the most satisfactory. "But we need to find Tifa. Have you heard anything from her at all in the past few months?"

Reeve stalled. He knew he would have to field their questions with the fact that Tifa had made him promise not to tell anyone where she was. Now that the occasion arose, and now that he saw Vincent's urgency, he just hoped he was a good liar.

Yuffie, who had been wandering around the office holding Reeve's cat, stopped short of the open container of cookies on his desk. "She was here, all right," she said, helping herself to a few. "I remember these, they're Cid's favorite..."

Vincent's crimson eyes narrowed, incredulous. "You speak to her," he said, and Reeve wasn't sure if that was a question.

"Er," said Reeve, resigned to nodding quickly. "Yes. She's in town."

Yuffie had taken up residence on the desk, right beside the cookie container, methodically ingesting the little delights and demurely stroking Reeve's cat. By no means a dainty eater, she was still a very petite girl; since Tifa left, she had apparently begun letting her black hair grow out. "That's really weird of her," she mused aloud. "Tifa always said she hated the city."

"So she's been in Junon all along..." muttered Vincent, who was not alone in thinking this was strange. He turned his attention to Reeve again, wasting no time. "Upper, Lower, or Under?"

Reeve slowly shook his head, smiling apologetically. "I can't say I know where she lives," he lied easily enough. "I'm too busy. I don't see her very often."

But Vincent wasn't about to give up. "Do you know where she works?" he prodded, stepping closer. "Do you know anything at all?"

"I - don't remember," Reeve tried, but Vincent's gaze was incredibly intimidating. "I mean - I know she does bartending." He cleared his throat. "Lower Junon. I can't for the life of me remember what it's called... ... I'm sorry... again, I don't get out much."

Vincent continued staring in his inadvertently overbearing way a moment longer before drawing back again, minimally content with the information.

Reeve composed himself, then looked to him intently. "She's okay, you know. You don't have to worry..."

Between swallows, Yuffie took the opportunity to speak up. "Well, Iron Chef Vinny here-"

"-don't call me that-"

"-wants her back home." She paused, cocking her head. "Sorry, what was that, Vinny V.?"

With a painful sigh, Vincent hid his face in his claw. "Do you see, now, why I need to find Tifa?" he muttered.

Reeve passed his gaze between the two of them. "...not really, no."

"Since Tifa left," Vincent took the liberty to explain, "everything has gone downhill. AVALANCHE is a mess now, even more than when Cloud disappeared. Most everyone stays at the Villa - Tifa's the one who convinced me to live there in the first place... but now that she's gone, we're falling apart. _Nobody_ gets along. I couldn't stand being there any longer..."

"And I'm sick of risotto," contributed a full-mouthed Yuffie.

Vincent's eyes flashed in scarlet resentment, as if he took deep offense to that remark. "And she," he went on, pointing at Yuffie, "is the other half of the reason I'm going INSANE."

It became evident to Reeve that Vincent had become very prone to Yuffie's button-pushing. The said ninja was indignant enough to put down the chocolate-caramel cookies to rejoin. "Come off yourself!" she scorned. "You _wanted_ my help finding Tifa, didn't you?"

"No," Vincent replied, restraining his contempt. He would be ashamed of this later: without really knowing it, he was again reduced to mutiny and bickering about absolutely nothing - Yuffie was so good at bringing that out of him. "If I may recall, you _annoyed_ me into taking you with."

Yuffie leapt to her feet. "You SHOULDN'T go alone! _I_ have more of a right to look for Tifa than anyone - I'm her best friend!"

"Oh, of _course_!" Vincent shot back, out of his habitual monotony. "The _faithful_ best friend! Do you remember, right before she left, when you took part in internet auctions, and you sold off Cloud's Buster Sword and my Lariat and scores of other possessions that WEREN'T YOURS?... and I remember how _pleased_ Tifa was to find out you were about to close the deal on one of her brassieres-"

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Reeve yelled over Yuffie's immediate shouting. Sheepishly, they both quieted down. "You-" he ordered, pointing to her and the cookie in her hand. "Don't eat all of those. And Vincent-" he turned to the stoically simmering ex-Turk. "I'm sorry, but I've done all I can to help you, and I'm too tired and TOO DAMN CONFUSED to deal with anything else. If you don't mind my asking, _please_ leave."

Reeve took a deep, shaky breath, pushing some hair back from his eyes, immediately tired from that paroxysm; he also noticed how very silent the office had become. Vincent stepped forward. "I should apologize..." he said in his usual dark and quiet way. As he left, Yuffie ran after him to plant a resentful punch in his side. Reeve closed the door right behind them... and activated the lock.

He wondered just what they intended to do once they found Tifa. Would they convince her to go back home? Maybe they would realize that she didn't _want_ to be found...

Reeve just hoped he hadn't given her away.

* * *

It was near evening, and Reno was getting ready to leave for work soon: despite his devastating loss, he knew he had to move on. Finished with his white button-down, he had just stuffed his arm into the sleeve of his black blazer when he heard a knock at the door. When it became a very persistent, urgent rapping, he sighed. 

Venturing out of his bedroom and into the rest of his sparse and undecorated department, he stopped at the door, and a subsequent check in the keyhole confirmed his suspicions. It was Rude and Elena.

And Reno had not forgotten he had disowned them. He opened the door, getting ready to demand what it was they wanted.

But one look, and he knew that they knew: he spun on his heel and they were off. Reno had to depend on being light and quick, but Rude was heavy and not-so-slow himself, so the redhead found himself unceremoniously tackled to the floor, harving turned over a couch, swearing into carpet fibers against his bruised cheek.

"We've been needing to have this talk for a while now," Elena said triumphantly, finally with something to be smug about. She sat down on the coffee table, right next to where Rude had him pinned. Crossing her legs, she leaned in with a severely annoying smile. "It's over, Reno. We _know_ you've been fraternizing with AVALANCHE..."

* * *

Post-Chapter Notes: ...hello again? 

Just wanted to say that... I'm alive?.. :(

Okay, this is just getting BAD. I've realized that I take so long that even people who don't ordinarily review will come up and beg me to update... and while it's nice to know that they exist, I'll have to apologize for taking another forever. ;.; This time I got sidetracked by two other pieces I wanted to write one of them still isn't done yet and the other one just sucks. So it's not that I don't write, it's just that I'm bad at being efficient. ..oh, that's a fine, lousy excuse there, Soul...

This chapter was SO not serious... I'm sorry if it's too silly, but this was one of those frustration-driven, type-the-rest-up-in-one-sitting deals, and I hope it's not too off. At this point, none of the characters seem to really know the whole story, as far as what's going on. But the next chapter now, I'm excited about this one there will be Reno/Tifa interaction(/residual conflict) again! For the first time in... a year... -weeps-

I'm not worthy. You guys... are so awesome for bearing with me...

EDIT: Quick-Edit is my sworn enemy. It mangled my formatting AND removed my double-dashes, so it was all screwed up and unreadable. I hope it's fixed now...


	8. The Slip

**Chapter 8**

The first thing in order for Rude and Elena to do was to get Reno to admit where he had gotten the cookies from. At present he was ardently denying having anything to do with AVALANCHE and insisting that he had no idea what they were talking about, but they knew better - Reno had a tendency to insist on one thing when the opposite was blatantly obvious.

He was no longer pinned to the floor, but was sulking on his couch next to Elena, bruised cheek (and ego) and all, knowing that resistance was futile. As Rude came back from the kitchen with the precious tin in hand, Reno cried out, "Don't eat any more of those!" He was rather protective of the last two - rather, one and a half - cookies left.

"Don't worry, they'll be safe," Rude told him, then lightly amended, "As long as we keep them away from Elena."

"HEY!" Elena sputtered resentfully. "Don't you - I wouldn't - I'm not some..." she trailed off, then sagged in her seat, looking positively miserable. "Oh... he's probably right.."

"So," Rude went on asking, "who made the cookies? ... is there a girlfriend we're not aware of?"

Reno seemed horribly bothered by the suggestion; his scars winced as he grimaced. "NO," he said. "_Definitely_ not..."

"So where did you get them?" Elena breezily inquired, certain that he was cornered.

Reno did not immediately reply. He deliberated for a long moment, staring widely back at them both. "Would you believe me if I said I made them myself...?"

"Nno," Elena said flatly. "You couldn't bake anything decent if your life depended on it, and you pour too much wine all over everything when you cook anyway."

But Rude knew exactly which button to push. "Nice tin, by the way..."

Reno suppressed a shudder as he considered the happy-Christmas-moogle tin in Rude's hands. He could have cursed Tifa's name again. It was garish and it compromised his masculinity... he _couldn't_ own it.

Looking away from them, he shifted, his mouth a stubbornly diagonal line. "All right, fine. FINE. I _didn't_ make them."

"Who was it, then?"

He muttered something unintelligible.

They both annoyingly leaned in to him. "_Who_?"

Still refusing to look at Rude or Elena, he glowered down over his left shoulder, very much hating them both right now. "Tifa... Lockheart..." he drew out, as if the defeat were killing him.

His comrades felt accomplished, though still horrendously confused. "Why is Tifa baking you cookies?" Rude wanted to know.

More urgently, Elena asked, "Why are you hanging around with these people?"

Reno was too taken by the latter question to bother with Rude's - he wasn't sure exactly how to respond to that, anyway. "There's no 'these people,'" he told them. "She happens to work the same place I do. She's the only one in town."

They both sighed. "You can quit lying, Reno... we know better."

"I'm NOT lying," he insisted, but their incredulity came off as too knowing. "Wait a second - you mean there's _other_ cockroaches in Junon?"

They realized his sincerity. "We went back and we got to talk to Reeve - for a second," Elena informed him, "and he told us that Vincent and Yuffie were here, too."

Reno gaped at her. Slowly, his eyes darkened. "She lied to me..."

* * *

Elena and Rude decided that they wouldn't rather go to the Jukebox - with Tifa there, it would just be too awkward. Reno was extremely angry at her all over again; she lied about her cockroach friends and made his own comrades think that he actually went about frolicking and eating cookies with AVALANCHE. She had not told him the truth, and still holding fast to his cockroach theory, he believed the terrorists really could have been back to reinfest his life, after all.

He could easily remember how confused and almost disappointed his friends had looked - Rude, especially. Reno had wondered himself if he was still head over heels for Tifa. He hadn't asked Rude about it directly, but they recently had one of those conversations in which Rude would get all big-brotherly on him and impart wisdom that Reno would listen to and often promptly forget. He had told him that there are some things from your past that you have to learn to let go of, and you have to recognize when some dreams are worth entertaining and when others just aren't going to happen. He remembered that Rude most always had a love interest at some time or another, and maybe Tifa was just another one he had moved on from. It had been more than a year, after all.

The heavy red door fell shut loudly behind Reno as he stepped into the Jukebox. He saw no sign of Tifa, but there was Dragen and other workers coming in and out of the auditorium, readying the stage and the lighting. He crossed over to the bar and picked up the line-up sheet, lighting a cigarette as he did so.

"Hey," said Dragen.

"...hey," replied Reno. "Where's Tifa?"

"She's not here yet," he replied. "...why's your cheek all yellow?"

Pausing, Reno looked sidelong over at Dragen, who had inquired of the funny bruise on the side of his face. "None of your business," he replied heavily, in no mood to deal with him.

"I'm just wondering what happened..." he trailed off.

"Do you want one, too?" Reno asked with growing aggravation.

"I bet someone punched you. Did someone punch you?"

"That's it - START RUNNIN.'" Reno feigned to stand up, and Dragen jumped and raced into the auditorium. He sat back down.

The door slammed shut again, and soon Tifa came around behind the bar, setting her purse down and shrugging out of her jacket. She caught Reno's heavy-lidded stare just then. "...hello..." she said, mildly confused with his coldness.

He said nothing in reply, but went back to studying the line-up, nurturing his hostile silence. Tifa sighed, realizing they were probably back to square one.

And so began another night of work. Again, Reno took up his usual seat at the end of the bar that evening, ignoring Tifa entirely and having a fine sparkling night in sheer spite of her. While she was annoyed, she went about serving patrons, determined not to let it ruin her evening. But in the sporadic little chats she had with people, Reno was bound to come up in some way or another. With little effort, she was slowly learning more about him.

He had his own spot at the bar that no one intruded on. He was indeed sociable and had no problem meeting new people, but there would always be this air of inscrutability around Reno - he remained distant after a certain extent. He didn't like to talk about himself. People could get to know him, as far as business, but there was an understood line nobody crossed.

People seemed to think he was modest. But Tifa could guess that he was only so private because of his past as a Turk... with that thought, she realized that she was the only one here who knew.

Tifa hadn't realized that she had been staring at him. His cool eyes eventually fastened on hers, and he questioningly blinked at her several times before she finally averted her gaze.

But he kept watching her, out of morbid curiosity or something else, leaning back on his bar stool, his eyes sullen and hazy behind cigarette smoke.

The girls here were not at all friendly to Tifa. Since her debut at the Jukebox, the attention of the men had mostly gone to her, the very curvy girl with the jealous eyelashes and the luxurious hair that found light wherever it fell. She was kind to everyone - strangely, Reno observed, she wasn't at all _flirty_... just sincerely nice. And on top of being so pretty and amicable, she had saved the world. The women were really no match for her, and it must have driven them crazy.

She had yet to make an actual friend here, but the girls saw her as a threat. Which was just _too bad_, Reno thought ironically, because if he didn't know any better, he'd have thought she almost looked lonely, in between laughs...

* * *

"Hurry! We might find her tonight if we're not already too late..."

"They're probably all closed by now. You just _had_ to stop at the Materia stores..."

Yuffie halted in the street abruptly. She whirled around. "And _you_ just had to stop at the gelato stand!"

Vincent remained stern, even as he held a dense scoop of amaretto-flavored ice cream in a waffle cone in his claw. "It's a warm evening," he said resolutely.

"I didn't know this would take so long!" Yuffie despaired. "There's a bar on every corner in this town, and like a hundred of them in Lower Junon alone!" They had weeded out the strip joints and various places they were positive Tifa wouldn't bartend, but there were still quite a few left to investigate.

Vincent eyed her coldly. "If you hadn't fooled around so much, we could have started looking sooner."

Yuffie turned back her fiery stare, set to provoke him. "We _also_ could have started looking sooner if you hadn't stopped to get dessert!"

"You leave the gelato out of this," Vincent said violently. Then he paused, checked himself, and took a deep breath, looking away from her. "I knew I should have started searching by myself..."

"Oh, shut up!" Yuffie cried, suddenly without patience for another second of bickering. "We're going to look for Tifa - NOW. There has to be at least a couple more places we can cross off our list before the night is over!"

* * *

Reno continued to be a silent, sulking jerk the rest of the evening; by closing time, Tifa couldn't take it anymore. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong?" She asked him at last. "Or are you just going to hang around and glare at me all night? Because if so, you can go ahead and go home."

But he didn't leave. Leaning over the bar, he carefully studied his cigarette. "You _lied_ to me," he said mildly, with a sideways broken stream of smoke.

"..._excuse_ me?" Tifa asked him, her surprise just as quickly replaced with aggravation.

"I think you know what I'm talking about," Reno said duskily as he looked up at her again, matching the intensity of her gaze without measuring first.

"No, I don't," Tifa replied, growing more annoyed. "I didn't lie to you about _anything_. Why would I?"

Reno was severely unimpressed. "I don't like being taken for a fool..."

"_I_ don't like being accused of lying when I didn't."

"There you go again!" he said, exasperated. "You're unbelievable."

Tifa's voice rose. "I'm telling you, I - "

Reno held up a hand to cut her off. Then he made a beckoning gesture, bracing himself. "Okay, Tifa Lies-a-Lot," he said to her, looking away. "I'm ready. Lay another one on me."

Abruptly, Tifa reached across the counter, grasped Reno's collar, and violently yanked him forward, until his upper body laid out over the bar, his arms desperately splayed in front of him. The ash tray was knocked off to the side, his cigarette was forgotten. With his face closer to hers, she couldn't help but think how nice it was to see him open his eyes all the way for once. "I am going to HIT you until it HURTS," she hissed, "if you don't tell me what's going on..."

Reno didn't at all doubt that she meant it. Locked under her furious gaze, he squirmed slightly, as if it were supposed to help him muster some sort of composure. "They said..." he managed, trying to hold onto dignity through lingering incredulity, though he thought he sounded dreadfully meek. "They said the vampire and the ninja are in town..."

Tifa was completely thrown off by this bit of news. "You mean Vincent and Yuffie?"

The shaken redhead nodded as much as her fists at his neck would allow.

"_Reno_." Tifa was no longer angry, but urgent, though he didn't find this much less frightening: her grip on his collar was tighter if nothing else. "Who told you? When?"

"'Lena and Rude," he replied gingerly, "heard it from Reeve."

Tifa's amber eyes grew wide on him. "They're looking for me," she murmured, sharing with him her disbelief and certain dread. If they were indeed looking for her, it could only mean that they wanted her to go back with them. But she didn't _want_ to - she hated living in Junon sometimes, she hated being alone, but she didn't want to go back...

Dragen wandered out of the auditorium just then, the strap to his guitar case slung over his shoulder. His pace slowed as he pulled a double-take at them both: Reno, who was sprawled across the counter toward Tifa, who held his collar so that his face inclined to hers. He gaped at them until they both turned their heads.

"I KNEW IT!" Dragen cried out, equal parts fury and disappointment.

Reno immediately became chagrined. "You don't know ANYTHING," he said, struggling to free himself from Tifa's grip.

"Why do you always get the good ones?" he went on lamenting. "WHY?"

But at that moment Tifa, who had been keeping an eye on everyone who passed by, saw two shadows edging the corner of the sidewalk through the far window. Not willing to take a chance - and much to Reno's shock - she quickly grasped his blazer further down his back and began to bodily pull him over the counter, to her side of the bar. When he realized what she was doing, he spluttered and tried to resist, but his elbows only slid over the polished surface. Then he tried to yell, but she wouldn't let him.

"If they ask - " Tifa called out to Dragen, ducking behind the counter after Reno's unceremonious face-plant, "I'm not here!"

The dazed redhead scrambled to sitting up, spurning her attempts to help him, feeling a very begrudging sense of abashment. He couldn't say that he had ever been handled in such a way by a woman before, and he didn't know what to think of it. He really didn't.

Dragen, in the meantime, was left confused by her orders. "Uhh..." they heard him deliberate.

"Who's coming?" Tifa asked from behind the bar, next to Reno, who didn't want to be found by AVALANCHE any more than she did. They both leaned back against the sliding cabinet doors, staring anxiously into shelves and shelves of bottles.

"...your friends," Dragen replied, sounding bewildered as ever.

"Oh, _no_," Tifa groaned silently, hiding her face. Reno watched her profile, unable for the life of him to understand why she was hiding from her AVALANCHE buddies. She suddenly drew her hands away, struck with new urgency. "Say I don't work here!" she called out to him. "Say we're closed!"

They waited, holding their breath. They heard the door knock - and Tifa hugged herself tighter - as Dragen's footsteps made their way across. "Sorry," they heard him say. "We're closed."

"Does Tifa Lockheart work here?"

She abruptly turned to Reno. "Vincent," he read on her lips.

"N, no." Dragen didn't sound as if he were hiding something, as Reno feared he would, but rather as if he didn't know her. Almost dubious, as if they were crazy for asking.

"Look," they heard Yuffie chide in. "Can you tell us where she _might_ be working?"

"No," he said again. Then he added, "Doesn't she live in Costa?"

Neither of them addressed Dragen's question. They glumly relented, and Vincent bid him good evening.

_Very nice_, Reno allowed. He had underestimated the kid's acting skills. When he didn't hear anything in the next moment, he leaned over to look around the end of the bar and out the window. Tifa had grabbed his sleeve, but he saw the back of Yuffie and Vincent's tattered cape as they continued down the sidewalk. The laughter rose deep in his throat, amused that they had actually tricked them.

Tensely, Tifa moved in to look for herself. When she saw that they were gone, she was so relieved, and the situation was just strange enough, that she found herself joining in on the silent laughter, with dark chuckling not unlike his...

* * *

Post-Chapter Notes: Strange little bonding moment, yay. x.x

Yeah, this was another one of those deals where I typed up the rest in one sitting. So it's not very polished and whatnot... and there are some inconsistencies I didn't notice until after the fact. XD ..just never you mind about gelati stands being open all hours of the night. Oh, and I've noticed this story's been so darn lighthearted lately. Yeah, just a reminder that it's not always gonna be this way. I'm afraid I got too carried away with the humor, but I just haven't been in the mood for writing angst lately..

Though I really hope not, this is probably the last update you'll see from me before Advent Children comes out. I sure hope it doesn't mess with me, characterization-wise. I really am sorry for taking forever, you guys. It really sucks that I wasn't able to finish this fic way sooner... its two-year anniversary is somewhere around here, and it's pretty pathetic. I'm really going to have to step on it. But I've a better idea of what this story's developing into, now...

M-m-m-m, gelato. But reviews make me happier...

Sorry, it's late. XD


	9. Burial Flower

**Chapter 9**

Once they were absolutely sure the coast was clear, Reno and Tifa both crawled out from behind the bar and dusted themselves off. Dragen had to leave, but Tifa was so grateful that she gave him a spontaneous little hug, and it seemed to Reno that his bad acting came back: he tried suavely to brush it off and then stumbled out the door, pathetically smitten.

They found themselves alone in the Jukebox. "Are you going to help me close?" Tifa asked, turning to him.

Very seriously, Reno looked at her sidelong, considering his new bruises. He agreed.

Tifa set him to work wiping down the counter as she gathered up all the glasses and ashtrays. He very laggardly began going about the job, partly because he loathed cleaning up - "closing" for him meant staying back and bothering the other person actually readying the place to close - and partly because his mind was elsewhere. "I'm sorry for... thinking you were a liar," he said at length, with some effort.

At this she glanced over at the top of his messy red head, because he hadn't looked up at her to say it. She couldn't hold back a smile at how difficult it was for him to muster the humility. "Apology accepted," she said with sweetness that he chose not to respond to.

She thought there was still something unsettled about his brow when they lapsed into another silence, until Reno almost burst with the question: "_Why_ are you hiding from your friends?"

Tifa stared from her place across the bar, realizing she didn't how to answer. "Because..." she began indecisively.

"Why are they even _looking_ for you? You didn't tell 'em where you went?"

"...no..." she admitted.

"What did _you_ have to get away from?" he wanted to know, because he really couldn't fathom her having any sort of problem in her glorious post-Shinra life. It was an honest question, but another pause followed.

Tifa said, "You're very nosy."

"I'm very confused," Reno amended, assuming the same sulky unimpression in her velvety dark eyes.

"Well, what I find even _more_ confusing," she said to deflect from herself, "is why someone like you is working at a place like this! I never would have imagined you as a comedian."

Reno continued to look at her for another moment with calm deliberation, as if deciding whether it was safe to confide. Then he finished off wiping down the counter. "I guess it was kinda random, though 'Lena and Rude somehow aren't very surprised. But in these days... I dunno, who DOESN'T wanna laugh?" He threw down the washcloth. "I just got lucky. When I was looking for a job I saw this place was about to open, and I figured I had nothing to lose if I auditioned." He gave a small shrug, coming to a heavy lean against the bar. "It's just as well, 'cause I'm not made for sitting around an office all day. I think it suits me."

Tifa's smile was knowing, but her eyes teased. "In other words..." she said, "you just like doing as little work as possible."

He stuck his chin out at her and exaggerated a grin, narrowing his eyes into crescents.

"Hey," Tifa said to him, suddenly noticing his work. "You're not done! There's so many spots you missed!" When Reno only stared, she sighed and picked up the rag to do a thorough job herself. "This is how you do it," she demonstrated for him, though he was no longer paying attention to that. Taking it easy on the bar stool was more his style.

"So, Mr. Comedian," she went on as she scrubbed the counter, "are you going to be famous?"

Reno made a face. He honestly hadn't given it much thought; the prospect of having thousands of fangirls was a creepy one. But the extra money would be nice. "I doubt it," he replied. "Not unless I headlined a show at the Gold Saucer. But then, I hear Dio has to recruit you for that."

"The man himself?"

"Yup." He leisurely turned on the stool so that he faced the front door, leaning back with both elbows planted on the counter behind him. He thoughtfully inclined his head as he watched the comforting city twilight through the windows. "So where'd Cloud go?" he asked curiously.

"...I don't know," Tifa replied. In the corner of his vision, she wilted a little, like a flower.

Reno craned his neck to see into her face as she kept wiping down the countertop. "You don't know? Well, why'd he even leave?"

Tifa paused, sighing, her hair fallen over one side of her face. "I don't know that, either." Her voice was flat-edged with impatience, but it didn't last. She began to fidget with the rag in her hands, as if reasoning with it. "It's fine, he's not a child, he can go wherever he wants. I really don't mind, I just... ... ..."

"Mind?"

"...MOVE," she ordered, shoving his elbows off the counter to get them out of the way of the washcloth.

Before Tifa knew it, she had done everything herself; she quickly learned that Reno would do an atrocious job of any project she assigned him, and she would wind up doing it over every time. She had to wonder if he were purposely making things difficult for her, but she was so glad to be finally getting home after such a stressful night that she thought she could forgive him.

Reno pushed the door open, only to see that it was raining heavily. Exasperated, he tried to stare through it, thinking about how he was going to have to run up the block in such a downpour to get to his car.

But Tifa, with all her things gathered up, stepped in front of him and opened an umbrella, placing it over her head. "You should probably read more than the comics section," she said as she turned back to him, grinning widely.

For a moment Reno just watched her as she stood perfectly dry in the rain. Then he gave a great long-suffering sigh, not entirely serious, and joined her underneath her umbrella, tipping her elbow to compensate for his height.

* * *

"...well..." 

"What do you think?"

"It's all right..."

That following evening, Reno stood in the kitchen for the first time between Rude and Elena, trying not too look too impressed. But he wasn't kidding anyone - he could already tell that their apartment was going to put his own to shame in every single way. The kitchen was awful roomy, with shiny hardwood floors and formica countertops, and from what he could see through the doorway, the rest of the place was not going to disappoint.

Reno, in his most indignant moments, loved to make declarations of hatred and perpetual grudges against whoever wronged him, but he most always failed to follow up. It might have also had to do with the fact that he was broke and bored, but he was already forgetting that Rude and Elena were dead to him for so cruelly bereaving him of his cookies.

He immediately went to looking through their kitchen, and a deep sense of pity for his bald best friend began to develop as he saw reduced-fat labels on most every food in the fridge. This was no doubt Elena's doing.

"Poor Rude," said Reno.

"Poor me," said Rude.

"What's wrong with you?" he demanded of her as he turned around, brandishing a box of fat-free cookies. "You can't do this to a man."

She turned back a resentful look, hugging her frame, which to him seemed as petite as it always had been. "I hate it, too," she said bitterly. "But I've been gaining weight... I need to stop!"

The boys exchanged looks. This always annoyed Elena because Reno couldn't possibly see Rude's eyes behind those sunglasses, but he always did it anyway. "Elena, you really need to stop this crazy dieting stuff," the redhead informed her, with an annoying air of intervention.

"Why?" she demanded, feeling that she was cornered again.

"Because for one thing, it's annoying," Reno replied. "And it's just not _healthy_. If you keep this up, we're afraid you'll either become anorexic..."

"...or join a cult," Rude finished.

She fumed at them both, resenting the fact that it seemed she was ganged up on every time they were together. "Just... let's just look at the rest of the place," she switched the subject, shoving Reno into the living room.

As he saw more of the apartment, his awe was getting lost in jealousy. The decor, which they were all used to as inhabitants of cities all their lives, was stark and modern, sleek and contrasting. A great view of the edge of town and the ocean, black leather couches, glass coffee tables, and...

"DAMN YOU BOTH," said Reno when he saw the snug little bar in the far corner.

"Like it?" asked Rude.

Bitterly envious, the redhead said nothing as he went ahead and investigated what kind of drinks were there. _He _could have been living in a nice apartment with a cool little bar, too. But Rude and Elena were smart - from the start, they budgeted and pooled their money. All he did right after Meteor was squander his last paycheck on food and alcohol.

"Hey Reno, did you see this?"

He stopped studying the labels long enough to look up at Elena, who was all the way across the room, where the dying light threw from some milky curtains. He couldn't see what she was on about, so he reluctantly came around from behind the bar, making his way to her. "What is it...?"

There was a slight rise at the other end, a single step that separated where she stood from the rest of the living room. Once he saw the grand piano, he stopped.

Neither Rude nor Elena played. It had been Tseng's.

"We salvaged it," Rude informed him.

Reno still hung back, dusky-eyed, as if it were a stranger he didn't trust. He didn't have to step any closer; the memories didn't have a problem reaching him from where he was.

He could remember being almost eighteen, an overeager rookie with an unmarred face, plinking away on the ivory keys, a blind and unappreciative not-even-melody that must have hurt Tseng's ears. And he could almost imagine his boss' form standing there casually behind the black polished sweep, playing one-hand scales and simple melodies. He always did like the composers who were dead at least half a century before he was born...

He shook off the thought, because reminiscing couldn't do him any good, and to him, the sight before him was all wrong. There it sat, unplayed. He drew in a slow breath, turning away.

He hated gone familiar things, because his mind, his memory, wouldn't be redrawn to admit their absence. And he hated the foreboding hush that had come over them all.

"It's been," Rude spoke up, "almost a year, since..."

"I know," he said distantly, boring his eyes into some far corner.

"We should..." Elena cleared her throat. "We should really do something..."

Reno turned to her. "Like what?"

"I don't know," she said tiredly. "_Something_. But we think that maybe we should visit the temple, or..."

He gave a sardonic laugh, not from amusement, but dry ridicule. "What for? What good will _that_ do?" He looked between them both as they were silent. "It would just be a waste of time!"

Even in near darkness, he could see her face register hurt. "Why are you so against this?" she lashed back.

"I don't know, Elena - for the same reason we didn't bother laying our hands on an empty coffin?"

The silence cut his words deeper than they would have otherwise. He saw Rude go rigid, Elena grow shocked, both of them senseless. In that beat of silence, before any outrage or penitence, he began to retreat.

"Reno..."

He turned his back on them, picking up his pace.

They followed him. "Don't go - we have to talk!"

"Then talk," he said firmly as he made for the door, "I'm outta here."

"_Reno_!"

"_No_," he threw over his shoulder, not wanting to hear any more. "To hell with this!"

The door slammed shut, reverberating throughout the apartment. Elena whirled around, blindingly frustrated. "Why doesn't he understand?" she cried. "He _can't_ leave! He can't just run away from all this!"

Rude, who had realized the futility of pursuing Reno sooner than she had, stayed back in the living room. He shook his head in reply.

"What are we going to _do_?" she asked.

"...Elena. You can't walk for somebody..."

* * *

Reno's pace had grown aimless by the time he reached his car. His eyes were bleary and they matched the dead night air, listless beacons of light from the skyline. Thoughtlessly, he started the engine and he drove fast, until he had left them far behind, but still not the dust and ashes that had been kicked up. 

It wouldn't leave him. His mind was too stirred in it all to just forget. Why did they have to insist on talking about Tseng? How would dropping garlands in an empty pit make them feel better? _You morons can go ahead and do that_, he thought. _I just hope you realize he's not even there_. He's not there_. He's_...

At the red light, he felt something awful come over him, and he bent slightly over the wheel, willing it to stop. He didn't want to think about his dead boss, whose face he couldn't remember if he tried, or that dark ready sense of something gone or lost or forfeit coming up on him. Even if memories were as close as the scars on his body, he wanted the feeling to roll over him and pass; for now, he just wanted to get by it. He wanted to be left unchanged.

When he had unbowed his head, Reno decidedly felt like getting very, very drunk; it was the only clear flashing thought in his mind.

He immediately dug around in his pockets and pulled out his wallet, only to see that he hadn't the gil to to spend. He swore again when he realized he couldn't go home, either, because Rude and Elena would just find him there, if they weren't already waiting for him.

He looked about the intersection he was at, for the first time noticing how familiar it was. All at once it came back to him, the recollection of the one-way street over there and his car spun out that way from a close call.

An idea hit him, as well. Maybe it was strange or just plain random, but he didn't know what else to do...

* * *

Tifa had been in her apartment, washing the dishes, when her doorbell rang. Unable to imagine who could be here at this hour, she tentatively stepped out of her kitchen and crossed over to her door, drying her hands on her jeans. 

She peeked through the keyhole. Then she drew back and looked away, staring in blank confusion. She checked again, and when she trusted her eyes, she unlocked her door.

It swung open to reveal Reno, who stood with a casual list in his posture. His brows were knit together in a very leisurely manner, though his eyelids were heavy.

"Mind if I drink all your cooking sherry?" he asked her.

* * *

Post-Chapter Notes: SURPRISED, aren't you! 

...I am, too. I seriously thought I was going to be rolling around on the floor and agonizing over how I was going to write this chapter for another several months. But - man. It's like a miracle!

You guys just make me so happy, I would give you cookies if I could... ;.; I'mma work hard, I promise. My goal is finishing this fic by the time I've graduated high school this year.

That's what I'm aiming for. At least one more update before AC would be nice, too.. well, we'll see about it. ;)


	10. Hilt Deep

**Chapter 10**

"…you really _are_ a small-town girl, aren't you?"

Locking the door behind her, Tifa had to do a double-take at whom she had actually just welcomed into her home. With one comment she had been adequately jolted out of the surreal haze surrounding the fact that Reno was indeed standing in her living room. She could not help but imagine how bad this would look to her friends, and the very reason _why_ she had agreed to let him in was already lost on her… but she had since decided that he wasn't out to get her—harmless, she'd almost think, if that didn't sound so strange.

"Yes," she responded lightly, for lack of anything more profound.

He stood taking in the warm colors and the walls loaded with pictures in mismatched frames, and she watched his long ponytail switch over his back with every turn of his head and the white shirttails underneath his jacket, willing her eyes to get used to the sight.

With passive curiosity he pivoted on his foot and turned back to Tifa, who became the next object of his study. "Don't _you_ look fresh and fetching tonight," he said with a deriding grin.

Tifa, who knew full well she was hardly presentable in her torn jeans and old tank top, immediately became vexed. "Don't make me regret letting you in," she warned, afraid she was beginning to already.

She did not make idle threats, and Reno wisely offered no retort where he might have normally had one. He followed round to the outside of her kitchen, taking in everything he could in her surprisingly humble apartment—and also keeping an eye out for cookies. "What were you doing before I so rudely interrupted?" he asked casually.

"I was cleaning," answered Tifa, looking at the dishes in her sink. _And trying not to think,_ she added in her mind. Reeve was too busy running the city and falling asleep in inappropriate places for her to bother for a night out, so she had given up and begun cleaning vigorously. Learning that Vincent and Yuffie were in town looking for her had put her on edge, and she figured that this was a more productive activity than baking dozens of cookies. She sighed, suddenly finding herself without the motivation to follow through with anything she had started.

To Reno, she looked a little more uptight and unsettled. Her eyes were lusterless, and she looked even wearier. Almost as if she were annoyed, or coming off something.

"Hey," he asked her without any effort of gentleness. "What are _you_ so down about?"

Her gaze flew to him, almost as if she hadn't noticed him there before he spoke. "Why did you come here, anyway?" she nearly demanded. "If you just want to _drink_, why didn't you just go off with your friends?"

As she could have guessed, Reno was not about to address her questions. Wearing a masterfully guarded frown, he inclined his head and looked her squarely in the face. "You welcome someone in, and then you turn around and act like he's intruding?"

Her fire died first, and she let him win his staring contest. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "Maybe neither of us is having the best night. You can… stay, I guess"—and she had another reality check—"but I'm not serving any alcohol."

A startled pause. "…come again?"

"You don't overdrink at work," Tifa went on, crossing her arms and gaining firmness, "but you don't look like you just want to have a beer or two. While you're here, all I'll offer is coffee or water."

Reno continued to gape at her before sheer resentment of her ultimatum set in. But he tried to discern whether this was her way of getting rid of him—if she really thought he was an underfed alcoholic with many illegitimate children; a sleazy loser who would turn around and leave if she said he couldn't drink here. _Well, no dice, Tifa Lockheart._

"Coffee," he said in his dark, mussed velvet sort of way, and waited for her to turn around so he could begin sulking.

"Cream and sugar?" she asked him.

"…chocolate syrup?"

Tifa shot him a brief look. "Sit."

Reno did not need to be told twice. He wandered back into her living room area and plopped down on a couch, which was well within earshot of her open kitchen. He had to lick his wounds, but soon enough he was more or less over their brief scuffle. "Did they find you yet?" he asked with absent curiosity.

It took her a moment to respond. "No… but it'll probably be any day now."

He relaxed against the cushions and tilted his head back. "Why don't you just call them and let 'em know you're alive and they don't need to look for you?"

"Because I know they wouldn't listen," Tifa said as she came back into the living room, and Reno watched her place two mugs on the cherry coffee table in front of him, along with a small tray of the chocolate-caramel delights. At the sight of the latter he found it difficult not to sit up too eagerly.

Taking his coffee, he also made an outwardly indifferent show of helping himself to one of the cookies. "What is it," he asked, exerting a great deal of restraint (that he was sure was slowly killing him) as he nibbled a conservative amount, "they don't think you can take care of yourself?"

"They don't," sighed Tifa, and when she looked down he voraciously shoved the rest into his mouth. "I'm fine… as long as they're around to look out for me. Well, maybe not all of them feel that way. I think Barret's taking it the hardest because he protected me for a few years in Midgar." She rolled her eyes with a defeated cynicism that reminded him of Elena. "By now, he probably thinks I'm… pregnant and living on the streets…"

Reno couldn't help but laugh at the thought. He didn't even know her as long as her buddies did, but from the start it had been made pretty clear how unapologetically different she was, from the way she treated men to the fact that she just didn't quite blend in with the rest of the girls. If her friends seriously thought that of her, either their over-protectiveness had blinded them, or they were just morons.

Now that he thought about it, he decided that he was actually kind of glad that he wasn't drinking tonight, because he didn't need help saying things that would make her throw him out the window.

"Do you like those?" Tifa asked suddenly.

"Huh?" Reno realized she had been referring to the cookies. "Oh, yeah, they're pretty good…"

"Oh," she said, relieved. "You never said anything… I was afraid you didn't like them."

He felt himself die a little more inside.

* * *

"Whoa, time out! Lemme get this straight…"

A couple hours later, they were still conversing in Tifa's living room. Reno had just motioned her to be silent, because she had divulged some groundbreaking information and he wanted to be sure that he understood correctly. He leaned in towards her and very carefully pulled out his words: "Cloud… wears. Dresses."

"No," said Tifa, scooting forward in her seat and setting down her mug on the coffee table between them. "No, no, no, no, no. Cloud doesn't _wear_ dresses—"

"But… he… ran around in one," said Reno, who was staring in disbelief.

"It was," she tried to explain, "the only way he could get into Corneo's mansion without immediately causing a ruckus!"

Reno was obviously still having a hard time getting his mind around this. "So… your night in shining armor—or, I should say, _shimmering dress_—busted into a floozy house so he could save you?" He just couldn't understand it… and for one, the mental imagery was not welcome. Before now, he was not aware he could think any less of Cloud. "Wait, and you're in _love_ with this guy?" he blurted out with the occurrence of the thought.

Tifa glared at him. "Next time I'll choose my stories more wisely," she muttered. Hating how transparent her feelings toward Cloud were even to one-time enemies, as well as her immediate embarrassment whenever it was brought up, she got onto her feet. "I'm getting more coffee. Do you need a refill?"

_I still can't believe_, Reno kept thinking, _that Cloud wears dresses._

"Oh, just DROP it already!" snapped Tifa, who could read it on his face.

She went into her kitchen, and he stood up and stretched before deciding to check out the photos on her wall. As he could have anticipated, they were mostly of her AVALANCHE buddies, in various groups and poses, as well as different occasions. These didn't keep his interest for very long, but the visually busy mess of pictures made it too easy for him to imagine Tifa hurriedly throwing them up on the wall when she first moved in, eager to make her apartment less empty and fill it with more of what she knew.

Reno didn't keep any photographs, himself—he supposed that his kind wasn't known for being very sentimental. He knew that Elena still had a few Shinra company directories, if those counted—they were all pictured there, under "Department of Manufacturing in Administrative Research," the fancy misnomer for the Turks.

He stood with his hands in his pockets, passing his gaze over each one, until a certain photo caught his eye. It was more humble than the others, etched in a small silver frame: in black and white, a couple with a young child. It immediately occurred to Reno that the little girl between the man and the woman was Tifa.

When she arrived at his side, curious, he looked from her old picture to her, back and forth between the five-year-old Tifa and the twenty-one-year-old Tifa.

"Yes, that's me," she said with a shy smile. "With my parents. It's probably the most important picture to me that I own… it's the only one with them I have left, and they're not… well, they're………"

"Dead?" Reno helped out, a bit boldly, having long since become hardened to this kind of thing… at least when it came to other people.

Tifa gazed at the old photo wistfully as her smile steadily grew faint. She nodded once. "Yes. It's kind of strange, sometimes, when you turn around and realize how long it's been. I could remember so much more with my father… he taught me to cook, and everything. But, he was killed by Sephiroth…"

"Tifa."

"Hm?"

Reno turned to her. "Why are you tryin' to talk about this?" His voice was quieter; he tried to hold an ironic face despite it. "I mean, who's forcing you? You shouldn't have to feel like you need to talk about everything from the past…"

"Well, I don't feel like I _have_ to…" she tried to explain, but trailed off. He was no longer looking at her, but she found herself watching his profile as he stared some angle down toward the floor. He was not visibly upset or angry, but she was too aware of the silence that hung in the air. She began to feel awkward, and a little concerned.

What nerve had she hit?

"I know what you can do," Reno said off-handedly, raising his head.

"What?" Tifa answered, confused.

He looked back to her. "You'll call them up," he said, closing some of the distance between them, "and tell them you're okay, and you missed them, and you can't wait to see them… tell them to meet you behind a cheap liquor store. And then we'll mess up your hair, and black out some of your teeth, and stuff some pillows under your shirt…"

It had taken her a moment to realize what he was talking about. Once she got it, she couldn't help her smile as it cracked wider.

"And your baby should preferably share the same name with some bad brand of beer," he continued thoughtfully. "Be sure to tell them that… I think it would go over real well, don't you?"

Tifa's shocked laughter was all she could offer at first. "Where do you get these ideas?" she asked him finally, some lilting tones leftover in her voice.

Reno didn't immediately respond, allowing himself to grin only after he had won hers first. He watched her as she gazed back at him, the city glow from the windows tracing choice outlines of her face, her smile warming the momentary delight in her eyes, and he simply gave a shrug.

* * *

Post-Chapter Notes: Ahh, I didn't mean to take another forever! I had like ninety percent of this chapter written for a couple of months, but it wasn't going over very well, and the problem was such that I finally mustered the courage to trash the whole draft and rewrite it from scratch. I've been working on this for the past four straight days, and... well, I dunno about this chapter. XD I've been looking at it too much. Oh, and I'm uploading for the first time from the new laptop, so bear with me if there's a problem with the formatting... 

Since this story's inception I've been worrying about what happens down the road. You see, the entire point of this story has changed several times, but in my mind it's finally come together and I actually have a brief outline of what will happen, about every chapter, to the end! And that's encouraging, because it's always good to have a better idea of what you're doing.

I'm sorry for screwing up again, and I'm sorry for not forcing myself to work on this sooner... school is going to pose some obstacles, but I still intend on finishing this fic by my goal time. You guys out there just rock for putting up with me and encouraging me and... being persistent. ;.; I would send you cookies if I could. Or the recipe, that might be just as well. XD


	11. Wake Up Slow

**Chapter 11**

"…so then I ate like twenty-seven jelly donut holes. 'N afterward I thought that wasn' such a good idea, and I needed some… insulin or somethin'. But then 'Lena came in 'n… whined abou—"

Reno was interrupted by a great long yawn, so that by the end of it he apparently forgot that he was talking at all. He was still on Tifa's couch in her living room, and at this point neither of them knew what time it was. They both appeared to have developed a good tolerance to caffeine over the years, as the coffee had utterly failed them. So as the hours went by they sagged in their seats more and more, and their conversation by now had tapered off except for Reno's sporadic, not-so-very-profound stories.

Curled up in her own couch across from him, Tifa was vaguely aware of the situation herself. She struggled to keep her eyes open. "Reno."

"Unh."

"You should go home… you're fall'n asleep."

"You kiddi'me?" slurred the redhead, his chin nearly to his chest. "The night is young."

The sun was going to rise in two hours.

There was a mild, and all too brief, movement of frustration somewhere in her mind. Tifa had the fullest intention to get up and make him leave, but her drowsiness was to the point where she had difficulty remembering the fact. She was simply too comfortable where she was, and she unknowingly allowed sleep to close in around her.

* * *

He wasn't there when she woke up, a while later… somehow, as her mind unclouded, she knew that he hadn't left. So she pulled herself up and searched her apartment, dewy-eyed and stifling yawns. 

He was sitting out on her fire escape, resting his head in the corner where the railings met, peering out over the faces of the buildings that still looked bare without the Shinra borders and flags. When she stepped out, he lifted his head; some wayward parts of his hair brushed back against the black metal bars as he turned to look at her.

"What's up," he said simply. His eyes were heavy-lidded but steady and clear.

Tifa settled down next to him, her long hair coming to brush over her upper arms. She realized that he had come out to smoke. "At least," she said, wishing she would stop feeling surreal about his presence, "you remembered to take it outside."

"Didn't realize how long it had been," he said, studying his cigarette. "Good thing there was at least one left in the pack, or I'd probably be gnawing on my shoe or somethin'."

The city spoke between them for a while. Tifa gazed a bit dreamily, as it was such an odd hour and she was feeling pretty out of it, herself. "Nicotine cravings woke you up?" she asked, falling back into the conversation.

"Nah," said Reno, easily. "It was a dream." He watched the morning begin to develop in the sky with no sun in sight. "He wouldn't believe he's dead. He _never_ believes he's dead."

"Oh," said Tifa, and she cleared her throat. She was wary of her voice being so raw and finespun under the breeze. "Tseng?"

"It's really kinda stupid," he went on, as if to minimize it; there was no heaviness about him as much as the stars were dodged out of the sky. "And it's always the same. I just run into him and he acts all pleasantly surprised, like he's been alive all this time and there's nothing _weird_ about disappearing for a year. I tell him he's dead, and he says, 'Of course I'm not dead!' Then I say I'm dreamin', and he denies that, too. But then he starts dancing the Macarena, or stealing somethin', so then I know I'm REALLY dreaming…"

She smiled briefly at the thought, hugging her knees and keeping quiet as she watched him. Reno had hardly spoken about anything remotely serious the whole time, much less volunteered this sort of information about himself… until now.

The sunrise was strange. The sky opened up and shone, but the buildings still left them in the dark. Reno took his last drag and sat leaning back now, staring thoughtfully into the skyline as if it had some contention for him. He unhinged his jaw in the slightest and the smoke was drawn out of his mouth like an unimpressed magic trick.

"It's just annoying, 'cause he never acknowledges that he's dead. And it happens all the time." He paused. "Is that weird?"

Tifa looked to him. "Well, do you think it means something?"

Reno rolled his head back and looked at her with the same bleariness, an earnest curve in the corner of his mouth. "My dreams never made any sense _before_…"

_Maybe_, she found herself thinking, _it means that _you_ have a hard time accepting that he's gone_…

But she didn't say it.

Tifa kept her gaze on the first rays of the morning, sitting next to him, feeling strange that he was here at all, but secretly pleased that she wasn't the only one watching this time.

It continued like this in silence. When the first shafts stared him down from behind the skyscraper he stood up and announced that he should probably head home.

* * *

Tifa found that she didn't like seeing him go. She inwardly chastised herself for trying to think of any excuse for him to stay longer—she came so close to offering to make breakfast, because she knew he wouldn't turn it down. _Am I THAT lonely_? she thought, discouraged. 

Her apartment was suddenly very quiet, but she was feeling more restless than tired. She went back to cleaning her kitchen, though if she meant to distract herself, it worked out very poorly for her: getting her hands wet again only reminded her of who interrupted her from finishing the dishes in the first place. Drawing the back of her wrist over her bangs, she snorted at the thought of Reno's ridiculous suggestion of how she should meet her friends again.

He was definitely… silly. With a huge proud streak, of course, but he was utterly harmless. She realized that the relatively short amount of time she'd spent with him was already rewriting the way she saw Reno of the Turks.

But the conversation on her fire escape… that was definitely interesting. Tifa had gathered that he was still in touch with Rude and Elena, but he never said anything else about them—that entire part of his life was sealed away from her. They were an esoteric, outwardly cool bunch and she really never considered how they related to each other or if they even cared if they lost one of their own. She realized now how silly that was, that if Reno was still having dreams about his late boss, there had to be some places in him that were perturbed by his death… he was affected by these things just like any human being.

To think she found him intimidating at first… he was so unmoved and inscrutable, and when he did get pushed enough—when she called him things that night which she now regretted—he only betrayed his bitterness. But she found that Reno was suddenly not such a mystery to her anymore.

Afterward Tifa sat down on her couch, placing her face in her hands and sighing. She wished she could talk to somebody. Her eyes stung and she knew she needed to get some sleep, but she didn't move from her place. As she found herself wondering for the umpteenth time what she was doing here and what she was holding out for… her doorbell rang.

Somehow, she found herself stiffening, temporarily immobilized. There was something she feared about it.

It couldn't possibly have been Reeve. It definitely wasn't Reno again.

Apparently Tifa spent too long deliberating, because the knob rattled—and finding it unlocked, her guest let himself in.

She had gotten up from the couch and started her way to the door when it flew open, and she had frozen in place as Vincent and Yuffie filed into her apartment. An odd strangled moment hung in the air as they stared at her and she stared at them and she tried to muster some not-flimsy and not-sheepish way to say hello.

"Tifa!"

The ninja was narrowly beaten by the ex-Turk to be the first to sweep the poor girl into a slightly desperate half-metal hug.

"Oh…" Finding the side of her face pressed into his chest, Tifa reached up with her freer arm and awkwardly patted his shoulder blade. "I… missed you, too, Vincent."

"My turn, MY turn!" Yuffie yanked at his tattered cape impatiently until he acquiesced with a silent rolling of his eyes.

As she found herself embracing her friends for the first time too long, Tifa suddenly felt that she wanted to break apart. Their absence from her life the past few months hit her all at once and she knew she wasn't strong enough to handle this; she wanted to fall in and hug them back because they were familiar and they were _friends,_ and she didn't want to be away anymore.

Yuffie let go and she stepped back, feeling that she was increasingly becoming more and more of a wreck. She knew what they would say next and her heart dropped before they even said it.

"Tifa… you're coming home with us."

* * *

One of the things that Reno really loved about his job was that he did not have to be awake for it until the evening. When he considered how he couldn't be any less of a morning person, he offhandedly remembered that he'd learned very quickly not to oversleep back in the Shinra days. Whenever he did, Tseng personally came into his apartment and yanked him out of bed by his hair. 

A memory like this in passing ordinarily would have annoyed him, but it slid over his fatigued mind as he dumped himself onto his bed. Sometimes it was easy not to think.

He woke up several hours later, famished but not encouraged by what was in his fridge, so he decided to deal with it when he left home. It wasn't until he got his shower out of the way that he could clearly think about this morning at Tifa's, which already felt like yesterday.

He'd let some things slip that he would rather not have. She was different from everyone outside of the Turks in that she knew he was one, but that didn't mean she had to know his life story. He realized, though, that bothering Tifa was pretty fun. Outside of work, his life was just too boring… and for the moment, he wanted as few opportunities to see Rude and Elena as possible. It had been an admittedly weird but sufficient way to spend his night.

She was amusing, too—in a very unassuming way that he liked on her. But Reno found it hard to forget that she branded him that night he drove her home. Some moments it really struck him, as it did once last night—especially when she was smiling and it seemed possible that she didn't find him so detestable. If he were honest with himself, it really bothered him that she thought so poorly of him…… and it bothered him that it bothered him at all…

Last night still loomed over his head, and that mostly was why he kept his phone off… the ringer always seemed even more shrill and annoying when it was Elena calling every half hour. But he knew them and he knew that he wouldn't be left alone for long, and it turned out just that way.

Rude was apparently not with her, though he heard her high heels in his kitchen. Then the slight rustle of clothing was in the doorway of his bathroom.

Reno didn't react to her arrival, though he saw in the slightly fogged mirror that Elena was leaned against the doorjamb, her arms crossed, blonde head tilted, eyeing him in calmly critical way. "Odd time of day to be shaving," she said breezily. "So! How hungover are you?"

With a heavy, steady hand, Reno turned on the faucet. He rinsed and dried his face.

He knew Elena could read his lines, and she immediately changed her tune. "Sorry," she said, and watched him turn away from her to finish buttoning his shirt. She seemed to hesitate a moment, probably readying herself for a more diplomatic approach. "Reno… are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he said in a closed tone. "Leave me alone."

"Is there anything you… need to talk about?"

"No."

"Are you upset?"

"No."

"Do you need anything?"

"_No_," said Reno, his head dropping slightly. "Go away." A long, quiet moment passed, and he sensed that she was still there. "Make me a sandwich."

She smiled then, reassured, stepping toward him. It seemed awkward to muster, but came out easier once she started: "Reno, I just want you to know that… we're here for you, all right?"

He looked sideways at his own profile in the mirror, his eyes growing wide in alarm because Elena was doing what she had never done in their entire past together as Turks: she was giving him a hug.

* * *

That night found Reno at work again, the part of his day he looked forward to now more than ever. In a lot of ways, it was as if his life didn't start until evening. 

The Jukebox had not yet filled up, and all he saw at the bar, regrettably, was the back of Dragen's messy black head. "Tifa here?" he asked when he arrived.

"Nope."

He watched him, blinking several times. "What're you doing… _waiting_ for her?" scoffed the redhead (who seemed to not recognize that he was doing just that, himself). "Have you got some more classical poetry to recite?"

Dragen was smug, not allowing himself to be affected by his jibes. "I don't see her hugging _you_," he said, referring to Tifa's little burst of gratefulness after he covered for her when Vincent and Yuffie came looking.

Reno gaped at him, no less derisive. "Are you… BRAGGING?" He had a good laugh over that one. "C'mon… when has she actually shown interest in anyone who's NOT that dress-wearing, bed-headed would-be boyfriend of hers?"

He let that part slip, and Dragen looked at once alarmed and tremendously confused. "Did you—did you just say… '_dress_-wearing?'"

But just then she entered the Jukebox. Both men stood upright when she came around behind the bar.

Reno nodded to her. "Hey, Tifa—"

"_Hey, Tifa_," Dragen said even louder.

"Hey," she said simply, and to his surprise. There was nothing stern or stiff about her except in the slightest way, how her cheeks were barely sucked in as if she were holding something back. She looked to him as if she were going to say something else, but then looked at Dragen and seemed to decide against it.

Thoroughly curious by now, Reno leveled his gaze on her but she wouldn't turn one back.

He couldn't wait for closing time.

* * *

In Which the Author Refrains From Saying Really Horrible Things About Herself: 

...uh. Aherm. Yes. So, that whole finish-by-graduation thing was a miserable failure. I know, I'm a sad individual. This story's three-year anniversary is... actually, in a couple of days, and it's maddening to me. My ideas are so old it's ridiculous... I'm DYING to bring this thing full-circle.

And there's really not a whole lot left... I don't think this story is going to reach twenty chapters. I worked on chapter 12 alongside this one (it's... very strange to flit between two installments, I wouldn't recommend it) and it's half done, and... I guess I feel like I really need to redeem myself. So that will be out relatively soon.

I have spent so long on this chapter that I really have lost all perspective, so I apologize if it's crummy. I wound up smooshing together two chapters that were just going to be boring filler (and even still there's a lot of lame introspection), and some stuff from this chapter will be explained a little better in the next.

Sheesh. As disillusioned as I sometimes get with this thing, I can't let it go. A lot of you guys have really been awesome for how this story has been puttering away, even if this's a new record for me. Ugh... sorry.


	12. Moss Roses

**Chapter 12**

What was he supposed to do but follow her? He had been meaning all night to ask her what was wrong, but she blew the joint right at closing time.

"I'm not feeling well" had been her lame excuse as she loosened her apron strings, as she pawned the job off on Dragen. He was so happy to take over for her he looked like he belonged on a cereal box, but Tifa was looking more and more like the Gold Saucer burned down and Reno easily saw that she wasn't ill.

Before she took this job, he never stayed back because he had nothing to do with closing the bar. So when she hurried out of the Jukebox, his reason for staying left, as well. To a normal person this may have been a cue to give up, but he didn't want to—he really wasn't ready to call it a night.

Something in him was averse to the prospect of being alone this evening, either among strangers or by himself. His only other option for company was Rude and Elena, except that he still kind of wanted to avoid them right now. Elena's sudden display of sentimentality was not reassuring, and even if she wanted to pretend that they wouldn't shove the whole Tseng thing down his throat anymore, he still knew better; and there was no conceivable way it _wouldn't_ be a strong impression on all of their minds the next time they were to get together. He would rather not deal with any of it.

So he followed Tifa home, where he knew she was headed, remembering that this was for more than amusing himself. When Reno wanted answers, he got them—a completely unwarranted sense of entitlement on his part, but he wasn't one to mind.

Her door was unlocked, which he found to be a sufficient welcome. At his entrance, Tifa, who was still in sight of her front door, started and whirled around. There was a dangerous moment in which nothing was said, with her eyes wide and filling up with something that was not hospitality—Reno, having nothing else to do, flashed her a decidedly cheesy smile.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, and quickly fell on the offensive. "Get _out_ of my apartment!"

Reno invited himself further into her home despite her wishes. "Not," he said evenly, and with a bit of curious amusement, "until you tell me what's been with you all night."

"I should have locked my door!" Tifa cried to herself as she flew past him back to the entrance. Her hair whipped back. "Waitasecond—I'll lock it after YOU leave!" And she opened her door for him expectantly.

"No," said the redhead, who had almost hesitated. He thought it prudent to be the cool one here, as she clearly was not—and he couldn't tell whether she was on the verge of employing physical force to remove him from her home.

Tifa steadied herself, shutting her eyes. "Reno—" she said with only frustration to back her words. "GET OUT."

"Why?" he tried, not defiant but plainly curious.

"Because I want to be ALONE."

Reno studied her miserable form for a moment. "You don't _look_ like you do," he said in all honesty.

She sighed shortly. "But who have I got to be with, then?——_you_?"

It struck him almost visibly, as soon as the words dropped. "_What_ was that?" he asked, oddly quiet, and at first it was clear that he did not know how to take it.

"I—" Tifa said quickly, and she finally shut her door. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean it that way." She saw that he was still not convinced, by the withdrawn and guarded offense in his eye; she regretted ever hitting that nerve. "I'm just really upset right now, all right? I haven't stopped feeling lonely, ever since I moved here. But now I'm especially lonely, because I still don't want to go back to my friends, and I… told them that, today…"

"You mean they found you?" said Reno.

"Here," Tifa nodded. A silence filled in the spaces as her mind obviously went back to that place.

Reno took a step toward her. "So are they… makin' you go back?"

"No," she replied. "They were really upset, but I think I got them to at least understand that I'm not ready to. They're gone. I just…"

The doorbell rang. They both froze.

Reno's eyes flew to the door, over her shoulder. "You… sure about that?" he asked under his breath.

Tifa suddenly was _not_ sure. She frantically motioned for him to hide; a split second later he apparently hadn't moved fast enough, as she grabbed the back of his collar and desperately sought a place for him herself, ignoring his protests which came in the form of interrupted consonants that mostly ended in question marks. He was hastily led through the kitchen and shoved into the pantry—and once shut inside, the flustered Reno decided that he really needed to have a talk with her one of these days about her man-handling him and how terribly emasculating it was.

"I'm—I'm _coming_!" Tifa called out, stalling until she made sure he was securely hidden. She rushed to the door and breathlessly checked the peephole. But when she saw who it was she relaxed, even laughed a little at herself, as the relief flooded her and she opened the door.

Reeve stood in the hall, dressed for business as always, though his hair was falling out of its style and he didn't look any more rested. "Hey," he said rather meekly, after Tifa greeted him with a spontaneous hug. "I hope it's not too late… I thought I'd stop by and have a word with you."

"Of course!" answered Tifa, who had not stopped smiling. Leading him in by the arm, they both settled on her couch. She faced Reeve, her eyes full and genuinely glad to see him. "I haven't been able to talk to you in so long."

"That's… sort of why I'm here," Reeve said, sounding tired. He looked to her intently, becoming perfectly serious as he studied her face. "Tifa… have you been all right?"

She looked down at her hands before answering, recognizing the uselessness of hiding it. "I'm… hanging in there."

"I've been thinking lately… about how I haven't made the time to keep in touch." Reeve went on in earnest, not averting his gaze. "It doesn't _matter_ how busy I am. You're here and you're alone, and I feel… responsible, somehow, for how you're doing… because I'm the only one who can be there, and I haven't been."

Tifa put a hand on his shoulder. "Reeve… don't be down on yourself. Your job is important, and… I'm a mess no matter what. But I'm so glad you're here _now_, so I can fill you in on some things." She paused, seeing how wretchedly tired he looked. "Would you like some coffee?"

Reeve miserably sagged a little more into his seat. "I don't even… remember driving here," he admitted, and she took that as a yes.

The slatted pantry door cracked open once she arrived in her kitchen, and a highly annoyed Reno emerged in the half-dark, scowling scars and all. "What the hell are you _doing_?" he whispered to her. "Now's not the time for a freakin'—"

Tifa, who was feeling suddenly defiant, shut the door on him before busying herself with opening one of the overhead cabinets.

There was a brief, furious moment before it flew open again. "_Woman_—!"

"You know what?" Tifa whispered fiercely, whirling around. "I didn't even _invite_ you here, and I think you can afford to stay in there for a few minutes while I talk to a dear friend."

At this, the redhead nearly had a little fit inside of his confined space. He was not a bag of flour; he did not want to sit in her pantry, especially now that he knew the surprise guest was not AVALANCHE. But while Reeve didn't hate him, he didn't know him very well, either, and it was understood that walking out right now would cause all kinds of awkwardness for everyone present. "Better make sure he didn't FALL ASLEEP already, then," he muttered.

Tifa had not thought of that. Setting down the mug in her hand, she rushed out to her living room.

"Oh, for the love of…!"

As Reno took that as his cue to come out, Tifa attempted to gently wake Reeve, who was indeed fast asleep. She gave up before long and gently pushed him into a lying-down position before watching him ruefully. Then she sighed. "_Now_ what?..."

"Wanna do something?" Reno, turning to her with a slight bounce in his heel, remembered the other reason he was here.

Tifa looked at him incredulously. "No!"

"Come onn," he prodded. "What else were you gonna do? Stay here and DEPRESS yourself over everything?"

Her brow furrowed. "Not _depress_ myself—"

"Just don't worry about it!" Reno advised. "If you came to Junon to get away, then you came to the right place."

Tifa wasn't so sure that she wanted to partake in whatever the city had to offer to help her "get away" from problems. "I don't… really want to _go_ anywhere else tonight," she said.

"Then, we'll just walk around," he shrugged, and she saw that he wasn't going to give up.

"All right," Tifa sighed. She threw a blanket over Reeve, and as he crashed in her apartment, she was down below with Reno in the city streets.

The nights were growing cooler. There were still other pedestrians out, but she felt a little ridiculous because they were the only ones with no destination in mind. "So… which way?" she asked him as they stood on the sidewalk outside her apartment.

Reno thought for a moment. "Just call out any direction… we could take turns. How's that?"

That seemed sufficient enough for her. He watched her as she looked up and down the street, deciding. "Um… left."

So they did, falling into a silence. Tifa looked briefly at the demure Reno at her side and slid her hands into her own pockets, in the same fashion as him, turning back to face straight ahead with a blankly dazed look in her eye.

She felt that she really needed to stop feeling weird about these situations. Nothing but Weird had happening to her ever since she took her job here; she ought to have gotten used to it already.

It wasn't as if she were ashamed of being seen with him, or anything. But she knew her friends (especially the likes of Barret) would definitely disapprove, and she realized she couldn't help but see everything through that filter: what they would think, what they would have to say about it. _But they're not here_, she thought. If she were not thinking what they would for once, then… how did _she_ really feel about hanging around Reno?

She would have ruminated on this point more had the redhead not called their next direction. "Another left!" he quickly blurted, and tried to turn accordingly in to the entrance of the bar they were about to pass.

"NO," Tifa said firmly, yanking him by the arm. Having no other choice, he fell back into step beside her, watching regrettably as they went by it.

"Straight." He mumbled his amendment as they approached the corner. And as the sign at the crosswalk began to flash, he wordlessly took her arm in his.

"Uhh," said Tifa, who was not catching on quickly enough. "What's—?"

"A—HH!" Reno yelled as he jumped off the curb.

Afterward, he was very disappointed (and bruised) to learn that Tifa reacted to this manner of crossing the street no less violently than Elena.

* * *

Their little game of aimless walking found them in Lower Junon, near the elevator. "Wanna go down to Under?" Tifa asked on a whim. 

Reno, considering the run-down fisherman town underneath, did not look too enthused. "Why would you want to go _there_?"

"Because it's… not the city?"

He wrinkled his nose. That was obviously the precise reason he _didn't_ want to go.

"I thought we didn't have anywhere specific in mind, anyway," said Tifa.

"…fine," he allowed, and she clearly saw how different he was from her in this one respect. Even if his old job had put him all over the world countless times over, he still preferred his cramped spaces and rude people and traffic jams.

They arrived at the bottom of the lift and walked out, no less aimlessly. It was a different world altogether; all was quiet, as the entire town had already gone to sleep.

The lampposts around them threw soft light that filtered through the trees, dappling the ground with gold. Tifa, looking all around, craned her neck to see up. Reno did as well, only seeing the hard outer edge of the city above jutting into the thinning smokiness of the night sky.

She wordlessly headed further out; by now he was only following her. They passed the few houses and the old inn, actually leaving town, as she constantly looked up. There was a difference in her now as they walked; she was calm and entirely quiet, serene and enlivened by something she held only to herself.

"You can actually see them now," she said finally, gazing into the sky. To make herself comfortable, she plopped down on the grass. Reno, staring at her, slowly fell too.

He could not watch the stars for very long; they were just dots in the sky—many, many dots in the sky, and he could not get past the fact. The sound of so many invisible crickets and whatever other annoying insects there were echoed around them, and they were far enough from town to be seeing mostly by light from the moon. His eyes inevitably fell on Tifa again. A stripe of pale blue crowned her hair, which was otherwise no different from midnight. "What're you _looking_ for?" he asked her at last.

The question struck her as odd. "It—well, it reminds me of home," she replied. "It reminds me of a lot of things, from when I was younger." Her eyes dimmed but there was still a secret quickening at the memory. "Mainly, the night Cloud made a promise to me under the stars…"

Reno, who was not appreciating the gravity of this memory for her, stared out into the night with rapt blankness. "Did he promise you that his hair would always look just like a chocobo's _ass_?"

"Very funny," Tifa said dryly.

Reno waited for her to go on, but she didn't. "Hey!" he turned to her, his curiosity piqued by now. "Aren't you gonna tell me what it was, then?"

"No!" cried Tifa, hunching up her shoulders. "It doesn't matter what it was! If I told you, you'd just say it was stupid."

"I wouldn't say it's stupid!" he said defensively. He paused. "Okay, if it really was, I'd tell you."

"No," she sighed, "I _know_ it's stupid, anyway. I sort of… _made_ him promise me, and I was just being silly and idealistic." After thinking a moment, she shook her head. "Back then, I had a lot of hope… I really had no idea. When I met him again in Midgar a few years later, I remembered his promise… and I was no less naïve about it. You know," she dared to confide, looking down at the grass, "I actually thought that I'd be married by now. So did the rest of my friends. When the fighting was over, we were supposed to… be together."

Reno had his knees drawn up with his arms around them; some faint silver etched him out of the night. It outlined every rumple in his clothing, suggested his cheek, filled in the side of his nose as he looked over at her. "So, did he just not get the memo, or what?"

"I don't _know_," Tifa replied, obviously disturbed by the fact. "There's times when you're with someone and you just _feel_ a connection… sometimes you're so sure that there's something there." She shook her head again, frustrated. "But I guess I'm not a good judge of that, am I? I thought that we were going to be together forever—but when he left, and it was clear he wasn't coming back, that all blew up in my face. There was no way of living up to that expectation I had anymore, the expectation of being with him. That's why I left. I had to get out of there so maybe I could shed those things. What's the use in believing in all the clichés, like being swept off my feet, or having sweet nothings whispered into my ear, or taking walks by the beach at sunset, or—or being saved by my hero and… being with him forever? They just _don't happen_ in real life…"

She trailed off and fell completely silent, feeling vulnerable and stupid; she didn't know why she ranted like that, as if he could understand.

"Sure they do," said Reno, most unexpectedly, though Tifa was still too embarrassed to look at him.

But her eyes flew all the way open and her body immediately tensed once she felt a certain closeness at her side, the slightest disturbance in her hair that was not the breeze—his mouth was there when he moved in next to her, threatening to break a roguish grin that she could almost feel. "_Sweet nothings_," he quite literally whispered into her ear; he abruptly pulled back and came away, cracking himself up.

And it was so inadvertent, she knew it was so stupid, but she froze because the proximity, his breath, drove shivers up her spine.

Surely he saw that she was still sitting there. "Can we go now?" she heard him say.

"Er," said Tifa, and she recognized that she should have said something more. "Yeah." She pawed at her hair over her ear, playing it off by giving it a toss over her shoulder—and she stood up as well, following his lead back into town.

She regretted leaving the open air and soft grass so soon, though she saw that Reno couldn't wait to get back to his world of concrete and harsh lights. They promptly took the elevator and set about navigating Lower Junon, this time not so aimlessly.

"Hey Tifa," Reno spoke up, at her side. "How _did_ you get 'em to leave you alone?"

"Yuffie and Vincent were both really upset," she recalled. "When they saw I wasn't going to back down they said they'd give me my space… but if something happens to me or if they hear about anything 'amiss,' they'll come running."

He thought on this, a weak grin spread unevenly over his face, half mischievous and half something else. He poised to speak before he actually did. "You think _this_ would be a reason they'd come running—if they heard you were hangin' around me, and all?"

"Oh," said Tifa, with a brief, pseudo-nervous laugh. "Definitely."

He shared with her whatever smile he had left, and she likewise, before she averted her gaze too soon. He continued to look at her until he rolled his head the other way, and he didn't end up saying much else for the rest of the walk back.

* * *

.x. 

Post-Chapter Notes: The site's been a little screwy lately, but I was finished so I decided to upload anyway! Hooray! I know I still took a while, but at least it wasn't another nine months or something. The college thing has been going really well for me, and I've been working hard and somehow not being too fried to write... which is really wonderful.

You know, I haven't played Dirge of Cerberus yet, but I'm very certain that DoC Reeve can kick my Reeve's butt. I mean, I would have characterized him differently if I had known, but... I didn't! So I'm afraid this Reeve is not going to be jumping out of trucks with assault rifles or what have you anytime soon. He's far too tired. And wimpy.

And slow-as-molasses ReTi development is always fun to write, but I dearly miss Rude and Elena. So I'm thinking they'll be crashing the party pretty soon here...

I was really down on myself on the last update, and I wanted to thank you guys for the encouragement. You've simply been awesome to me as this story has been puttering along. I'm really excited about this next chapter here, so I'm wasting no time getting on it...


	13. The Party is Crashed

**Chapter 13**

He waited for her in the lobby this time, settled back against glass, where behind him the late afternoon waned into evening and the sun couldn't reach its way into the street anymore.

Something opposite of that was turning over inside of him, as if in waiting for some kind of dawn. He was impatient. But he finally saw her appear around the corner at the bottom of the stairs, her near-black hair slapping her squared shoulders, a light grudging scowl set on her heart-shaped face.

Reno let off, immediately amused at her demeanor. "You called in today, right?" he made sure to ask.

"Yes," Tifa answered as she cast away her gaze, not sounding particularly proud of the fact.

He couldn't help grinning at her disposition even if he knew it would annoy her, falling back on the door behind him. "See! Wasn't so bad, _was_ it?"

Tifa, moodily crossing her arms, didn't immediately reply as she went to leave with him. "You're a VERY bad influence on me thank you," she wound up saying in the same breath, because Reno had been so kind as to hold the door open for her. When she went to glare at him, he smiled sweetly.

"So what'd you tell the boss?" he asked as they took to the side street, immediately losing his voice into the open air. He found his comfort again in the brisk evening, the busy flush of the city right before sundown, as much as the company he had at his side.

"I said… 'I'm sick,'" Tifa replied. And she coughed unconvincingly.

He looked at her in amazement. "That _worked_? I guess playin' hooky is that easy when you're Tifa Lockheart…"

"Ah—!" she protested. "But I wouldn't be telling bad lies to skip work right now if it weren't for YOU."

Reno stopped in the street; she did, as well. He tried to be perfectly serious, looking down at her with his heavy-lidded eyes. "I'm not _making_ you do this, Tifa," he said mildly, as if she had a choice in the matter and he wouldn't mind at all if she decided to turn back now.

She scoffed at his nerve; before this moment he had given her a very contrary impression.

Reno had approached her at work early in the week, in quite the same infectious spirit, informing her of a gig he had landed at another place that Thursday and insisting that she come see him. After she'd turned him down several times in a row, he had thrown himself across the bar in perfectly melodramatic exasperation, as if he were dying there and she was just going to have to wipe the counter around him from then on.

When she'd asked him why he wanted her to go, he replied that he just wanted someone he knew there ("You know… moral support, or whatever"). She would have liked to know why Rude and Elena apparently weren't free, but of course she never got a satisfactory answer. In the meantime, Thursday approached; he never relented, and before she knew it she had been talked into taking off her first day and going with him instead.

"C'mon, it'll be worth it," Reno very confidently affirmed for her, as they came across his sleek black vehicle. "The venue's across town and it's a _way_ nicer place than where we work…"

Junon (the part built over the fisherman town) was not very old at all, and hardly charming by Tifa's standards. They arrived on the edge of the city as the sun sunk into the ocean—they could see it from where they were—sending out a last blushing glow that was visible where artificial light had not already settled. Here, she might have even called it pretty, and she was perhaps closest to understanding what Reno saw in his so-beloved city… but it waned too fast and the street lamps easily took over.

The two fell into step again on the sidewalk, eyeing the venue up ahead. Tifa looked over at him and gave a nudge. "You nervous?"

"Nope," Reno said sublimely, cool as ever. "I _never_ get n—"

Amused, Tifa watched him hit the crosswalk and realize she was no longer at his side; she was definitely not going to cross the street with him after that last time. When he saw how it was, he looked back at her disappointingly, his hair turned deep auburn and his eyes bright and clear in the dying light. He sighed and crossed the street like a normal human being as she followed a few paces behind.

"Good." Tifa continued the conversation where it left off, once they reached the other side and she fell back in next to him. "Because I'll be watching this time."

Reno gave a confident grin as he pulled open the door for her, but by the time she went in ahead of him, all the smugness had fallen out of his expression as that remark began to catch him for what it was.

* * *

It didn't fully strike him, not until he was finally announced and he casually strode up to take the mic at the edge of the stage—he almost immediately saw her there, at her own table a little to his left. Her warm eyes were lit up and she was excitedly adding to everyone else's polite applause, looking up at him almost adoringly.

Seeing her watching him like that, Reno very nearly thought he was going to choke. In that instant he feared his confidence was fleeing him and his mind was going blank; he was forgetting everything he had stored up in his head.

But he didn't take his eyes off her; it might have been the light, but everyone else was dim. Her stare was proud and fond, as if holding a secret between them, and on that level he understood that look was only reserved for him of everyone else onstage tonight. He forced himself to take a breath; something deep and unconscious somewhere had moved into place, and he drew enough from her affirming face to press on and start his set.

He found that he was fine after he completely composed himself, though that wasn't until after he got his first laugh out of her.

* * *

"I liked it!"

Reno blinked down at her as they met again at the bar, somehow relieved at the remark and vaguely wondering since when he cared this much about what somebody thought. "You… did?"

"Yeah, it was great." Tifa looked at him in faint amusement and retrospection, tilting her head toward him under the light. "No one would expect it looking at you, but you can make yourself really endearing when you want to be. It's like this weird sort of charm that catches people off-guard…"

He watched her as she held that look, that sly smile that brimmed her eyes, and decided that she was pretty in that very rare and unassuming sort of way.

By now she could pick up the loose end of one of his remarks and battle his wits with her own—he'd learned over time that she liked taking jabs at him, and he found that he didn't mind. They spent their time sitting together at the bar (and he was drinking water because she was drinking water), keeping the conversation to themselves, about anything from the venue to where he got some of his material to how much he was _dying_ sometimes to use some stories from the Shinra days.

But they were fairly regularly interrupted by people who came by to introduce themselves or leave some remark on how they thought Reno did tonight. This was secretly annoying to him, as when his attention was taken off Tifa for long, some guy would to cut in and try to chat her up.

There were other people here he was already acquainted with: a few random patrons, mostly other amateurs in the same boat… but he didn't care to talk to any of them, even though some tried. The last time he looked out into the crowd, he caught an unexpected glimpse of a couple more-than-acquaintances coming their way.

"Oh, shoot," Reno said under his breath, whipping his head back. He braced himself before he and Tifa both turned to see a tall, tan bald man and a short, furious blonde woman standing just in front of him.

"I liked your set," said Rude, who was looking too amused. "That was some… _very good_ observational comedy."

Elena was hotly appraising him, glaring daggers. "You didn't name names," she said shortly, "but _I_ was the butt of some of those jokes, wasn't I?"

Instead of answering that question, the wild-eyed redhead turned back to his other friend. "How did you know I was here?"

"Oh, I walk by this place on my way to work… I happened to see the line-up posted for tonight."

Reno sighed and placed his head in his hands. He should have known they'd be looking out for him…

Tifa shifted her glance between him and his friends, slightly uncomfortable.

"Are you done for the night?" Rude asked.

Arching a brow, Reno looked to her. "…yeah…"

"Why don't we sit together for the rest of the show?"

"That sounds like a _great_ idea," Elena said through her teeth, though he was certain that she was agreeing only so she could have a chance to kick him under the table.

"I bet you didn't know this," said Rude, "but Elena went back and finally got a job with—"

"Oh!" said Reno mock-excitedly, his face lighting up at the news. "So she finally joined the circus? That's _great_!"

The irate blonde appeared to barely keep herself from lunging at him. "NO, I'm gonna work for REEVE now, you——_uff_—!"

She was suddenly shoved sideways into Rude as a very well-dressed man butted into circle. "Hey there!" he said briskly, wasting no time and reaching out to shake hands. "Reno, is it? I have to say, great set. You really _killed_ 'em tonight!"

It was a well-intentioned remark, but Tifa, Rude and Elena nearly winced at the unfortunate irony; Reno's already confused smile became more visibly strained.

"Anyway," the man went on, "I'm scouting for amateurs to headline a show at Speed Square next month…"

"Huh?" said Reno, who was not quite catching on. "But I heard Dio recruits people for that himself…"

"Yes, but when unexpected business comes up, I'm sent in his stead." He paused. "The man doesn't wear pants. I think his absence is doing us all a great favor." No one contested that, so he cut to the chase. "So you're one of the best I've seen all night, and I'd like to contact you about becoming a headliner for the show… _if_ you're interested, of course."

"Uh… yeah!" Reno managed, in sheer disbelief of what he was hearing. Tifa, in her excitement for him, latched onto his right arm.

The Gold Saucer manager, glancing up from the memo pad he was getting out, seemed to have noticed her for the first time. "She your girlfriend?"

Elena hid a sudden smirk behind her hand; Rude cleared his throat in masked interest. Behind the agent, they both waited for an answer, equally expectant and amused.

Meanwhile, it seemed to take a moment for that question to register. Reno didn't see Tifa's reaction but he paled if anything; he blanked out for a moment, vaguely aware of her grasp on him until she released it, and he shook his head and denied it right along with her.

"Oh! Well, if you don't mind—just for a moment—" he excused himself and took Reno aside, leaving Tifa alone with his friends.

Feeling uneasy in such a potentially awkward situation, she watched as they closed in the extra space. Here was a couple of former enemies—who apparently didn't dress with any less class, but who were a little funny about wearing the color blue anymore.

Rude stood tall and solid, with Elena looking quite short next to him. His sunglasses were put away and she could see that his eyes were a darker shade of brown than hers—they were also more warm and expressive than she would have imagined. The brunette began to relax a little when she saw that neither of them seemed as cold or intimidating as she expected them to be—as Reno had been, when they shared their first interactions since Shinra was brought down.

"I like your jacket," Tifa said to Elena.

This completely caught the blonde off-guard, as if she had not received a genuine compliment in a very long time. "Oh!" she said. "Th-thank you!"

"Not that surprising, is it?" started Rude. "The field of business Reno's in, and all…"

"Yeah," said Elena, barely feigning a conversational tone over her bitterness, "he's _always_ been a—"

Rude loudly cleared his throat just as she finished her remark with something highly unladylike. Obviously determined to keep the conversation amiable, he made a more direct comment to Tifa. "Sorry about giving you a scare a while back, at the cell phone store…"

"Oh," said Tifa, with a little laugh in secret relief because they were not pushing the "girlfriend" question. "It's all right. I may have handled it a little better if I hadn't just had the surprise of finding out that I was working with Reno."

Rude nodded slightly in understanding, staring off. "How's he been?"

She tilted her head as if she hadn't heard right, then decided she may as well give an answer. "Um, really… goofy……?"

"Sounds about right," he shrugged. "We haven't heard from him in a while."

"Really?" asked Tifa, her face falling into bemusement. But Reno returned just then.

He passed a gaze at everyone, almost more incriminatingly at Elena and Rude. "Shall we?" he said after a moment.

Elena looked at him almost unseeing in resigned sullenness. "I need a margarita," she said flatly, making no effort to keep from roughly brushing past him on her way to the bar.

Reno decided to get a beer, so he went back and hailed the other free bartender.

"Hey… is she your girlfriend?" he asked after he fetched him his drink, lifting his eyes to Tifa, who was just out of earshot.

"Nope," Reno readily replied.

"Well, can you… give her this for me?" He got out a pen and scribbled what was presumably his name and number on a beverage napkin.

Reno appeared to receive that as easily as the last question. He looked at the other man across the counter with an expression that was neutral, a little blank, but not altogether impolite. Then he nodded, taking it up and shrugging a shoulder as if it were no big deal.

"Sure thing," he lied. And when he was just inside the auditorium he dropped it into the first trash receptacle he saw.

* * *

The four of them beat the rush and left early, because the last guy really wasn't all that great. Reno didn't mind, because there was a business card in his pocket and new prospects to face; the night had turned out unexpectedly well.

Except that Tifa and Elena, who had hit it off at some point this evening, walked several paces ahead of Rude and himself, chatting about something or another.

"What could they be talking about?" he wondered aloud, disturbed by this development.

"I don't know," replied an equally bothered Rude. It was always Elena being left out, not one of them.

But Reno was, no doubt to Rude's annoyance, not content to stay where he was and start an actual conversation with his own best friend. He strode up ahead, eyeing them intentionally. "Hey, what're you—"

"GIRLS ONLY," Elena blurted out, placing a palm on his forehead and shoving him backward. Tifa, over her shoulder, gave him a rueful smile.

He was flustered, wishing for some way to pay her back for that—but then he saw where on the street they were. "Hey, hey, hey—" he went over and took the brunette's arm, slowing them down. "We parked over here," he said, jerking his thumb toward the lot behind him.

Rude and Elena, after coming to a stop in their places, stared for a moment.

"Well…" said Rude, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. "Good night, I guess."

"Yeah," Reno said quickly. "See ya."

"You'll call, right?" Elena asked, and the redhead realized this question was not directed toward himself.

"I will," Tifa replied. "Definitely! Goodnight."

She waved goodbye; Reno waved them _off_, and just before they reached his car he nearly exploded: "You guys exchanged _numbers_?"

Detecting his tone, Tifa rounded on him. "What's wrong with that?" she cried. "I don't have any friends who are girls in this whole CITY, and Elena's the first one I've met here who DOESN'T hate me for absolutely no reason!"

Reno didn't care about any of that. "YOU should have my number!" he asserted, clearly bothered by the fact that this was not already a reality.

"All right," she said, coming round to the door on her side. "Maybe I should give you mine, too…"

He smirked, poised outside of the driver's seat of his fine Shinra model. "What if I prefer barging into your apartment?"

Tifa shot him a keen look across the hood. "I'm locking my door. You're calling."

"You're no fun," Reno muttered as they let themselves into his car.

It was too soon before he was dropping her off in front of her apartment already. But instead of saying goodbye just yet, Reno stalled a bit, mustering some other words.

"Hey." He turned to her in earnest. "Thanks for comin' with me tonight."

Tifa looked back at him, a smile breaking like something she couldn't hold back. "Yeah, I'm glad I went. Maybe next time I shouldn't put up such a fight…"

At this it was nothing to find an easy one to match hers, but after grinning at each other like that for a time, Reno was suddenly wary to feel the gossamery moment turning into more of a hesitation. "Well… goodnight," he had the urge to say then.

"Goodnight," said Tifa, and the slight awkwardness dissipated once she was out of his car. He watched sidelong, a little rigid, as she went inside her apartment, as a formless protest sunk in and he deliberately left it un-dealt with. When he pulled out into the street, his PHS started to vibrate; without thinking, he answered.

"Soo," Rude's low tones lilted through the phone, with no preamble. "What exactly was that back there?"

At this his eyebrows went up slightly, using his free hand on the steering wheel. "Um… what was what back _where_, buddy?"

A sigh. "Come on, Reno. I'm not that dumb."

He shrugged, a little stiffly. "I still don't know what you're talkin' about…"

Rude didn't sound any more convinced, but humored him anyway. "Is there more you're not telling us, Reno?—is there something we should know about you and Tifa?"

Reno's expression was decidedly blank. "Hmmmm, _nope_… can't say there is!"

"Really? Because I know me and Elena weren't the only ones there who thought you two looked like an item."

"That's just STUPID," Reno shot back. "There's nothing actually going on between us—that wasn't even a _date_."

"Quit tryin' to fool me!" Rude said with impatience. "I know you, Reno, and I can tell what's really going on here. If this were the reverse situation you'd no doubt be making fun of me for being a sentimentalist—but I'll spare you that, because I'm not a jerk—I'm not _you_. And I know our friendship right now has definitely seen better times, but it kinda _hurts_ that you won't be up-front with me on something as obvious as this. So, I want you to 'fess up: are you or are you not pursuing something with Tifa?"

"_No_," Reno said emphatically. Then he added over another sigh, "I mean, I couldn't if I _wanted_. She's… she's too……"

"…good……for you…?

A silence stretched across as he sat at a red light, slack and hunched forward, an insensible arm holding the phone to his ear.

"Look," Rude spoke up. "You know I didn't mean it like—"

"No," said Reno, his tone dropped flat; something kicked back in. "No. You understand, right?… better than I do." His hand fell from the wheel, but not his mind from when she first branded him. "See—? You got nothin' to worry about…"

* * *

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Post-Chapter Notes: So all throughout the school year I fought with this chapter (and lost). Then I ran around southern Ireland for a week this summer and came back absurdly inspired. And I took another frustrated look at this frustrating chapter and the storyline in general and I was so frustrated that I decided I'd lock myself in the proverbial closet and write and write and write.

That was what I did for several straight days. It was actually pretty taxing. But I worked ahead: 14 needs some cleaning up and 15 is taking an adjustment in events, but the point is that **the next two chapters are basically done**. GAH. There. I'm not playing anymore!!

As far as this chapter, I didn't mean for Reno's Gig at Some Other Place to come up so abruptly... the mention of it was actually written into a draft of the previous chapter that wound up getting scrapped, and I didn't get around to putting it back in. Oh yeah, and the ReTi development? It's not slow-as-molasses anymore. This is about the point at which it's actually going to get pretty steep...

So I want you guys to know that I'm really passionate about getting this story done. Much love to you if you leave a comment, or if you just read at all!


	14. Everything Has Chains

**Chapter 14**

Elena had been so excited to start this day that she came to work early… her first day on the job was not to go without celebration.

The Junon Branch stood tall and stilted in the middle of the city, the first to be crowned by the morning sun. She had been inside the place a handful of times when it operated as a part of Shinra; how different it looked now wrenched oddly into her memory of it. It seemed that a lot of things in her life were that way, anymore—refitted memories, and repainted familiar things...

But, setting herself up at the front desk, she was positively ecstatic about this change. She _finally_ had a job—no more reason for her to feel like dead weight! And no longer would she be lying around and eating too much and watching soap operas and watching Rude drink out of the carton when he didn't think she was looking.

Upon hire she had gone shopping to celebrate, and now had some great new heels, a real lethal-looking pair that would make Reno think twice about saying anything remotely insulting to her. She had also hung up a new calendar, open to the page with a baby seal. Every now and again she glanced at it for affirmation of her spirits: it was looking to be a very good, very cute month.

After some time Reeve hobbled into the office, clutching his cat and all but dragging his briefcase, miraculously on time despite his sleep deprivation. Elena stood neatly at attention with a tight smile but he scarcely looked at her as he passed, muttering an exhausted but not impolite "good morning." He disappeared from her view and into the hall, but then after a brief moment he back-tracked until he was in front of her again, gazing at her with glazed bewilderment.

"Did I—?" he started to ask. "Um, what did... why are you...?"

"Your secretary quit last week," Elena informed him quite patiently, as she had anticipated his query from the look on his face. "And you hired me, so here I am starting my first day."

"Oh," said Reeve after a moment. "That's right... I did hire you." He shook his head, cleared his throat, rounded his shoulders, and went back on his way to his office after accepting Elena's offer of strong coffee. She put some on and then went back to her desk, waiting excitedly for a phone call or for someone to arrive. When a man came in to deliver the mail, she jumped up, soundly thanked him and set about to sorting through it.

Reeve wandered back to the front desk after getting everything settled in his own office, apparently to make sure that she knew the ropes and didn't have any outstanding questions.

"I think I've got it all down," said Elena, who then held out a couple of magazines separated from the pile. "These just go out to the waiting room, right?"

"Yeah." Reeve made a wry face as he picked up one of them, a local tabloid. "Though stuff like this is just litter box liner, if you ask me," he added, carelessly flipping through it. "A lot of sleazy, contrived stuff printed for the mindless public to—"

He suddenly screamed.

* * *

He waited for her in the nook next to the entrance of the coffee shop right near the edge of Upper, huddled there exhaustedly, in disbelief of how low the sun still hung in the sky. Of course this was because of her, or else he wouldn't be out at such an early hour.

Except that—even more unbelievable still—he had gotten here before her. So he was left hanging in bleary anticipation and mild incredulity as to whether this was the place they'd agreed to meet, until he finally did see her coming his way. When she reached him he un-slumped himself until he was taller than her again, ginger like a cat in a patch of sun, but with a sharp wide eye on her that demanded explanation.

"What?" Tifa asked. "I took my time because I thought that you would be late…"

"Oh," Reno said, rolling his eyes. "Well, _thanks_. Maybe I should have just gone back to sleep for a couple more hours, if that was what you were expecting…"

"I'm," she started, her eyes widened as she gave him a once-over. "I have to say, I'm really surprised that you actually showed up early!"

"Well," he was quick to retort, unable to understand why he was becoming flustered. "What do you expect? You called—you said to meet at _this_ place at _this_ time, so… I did…"

She didn't pursue it, and in his bleary mental state she was a wonder to look at, so fresh and faintly contented at so ungodly an hour; she didn't look like she needed any, but she got some coffee with him and they promptly went back out into the morning.

They were nearer to the ocean with the crispness of the view heightening as the sun climbed the sky, perched on the edge of a fountain that they found near some opera hall, one with structure and molding that made it look much older than the city itself actually was. Reno sat next to her, willing away a headache and staring down into his to-go cup as she sighed wistfully (like she always missed something, like every pleasing thing was reminiscent of some other time) and remarked on the beauty of the day.

"Do you really hate it anymore, Tifa?" Reno found himself asking. "Can't you stand to live in Junon after all?"

Her back had been arched and her neck inclined to see the sky; slowly she sunk from that posture and turned to face him, and the city fell off where the ocean met in her eyes. "No," she said evenly, but in alive and working deliberation. "Well—I think I may have gotten used to it a little, but… I miss other things too much. It's usually so drab and cold here—the feeling of it, I mean, not the weather—and most people aren't nice, they don't know you and don't care to know you. There's not enough life here, and ever since I've had this crazy urge to grow a garden again. I want things ripened off the vine—store-bought doesn't cut it! And I want to grow some flowers, too, maybe moonflowers and morning glories, like the ones on the latticework behind my old house in Nibelheim…"

She always volunteered this sort of information when Reno didn't ask for it, when he didn't think he'd do the same if he were in her shoes. But at the same time it forced him to recognize that she wasn't bothered by thinking of these things again. It never stung her, and he wondered why.

Tifa appeared to notice that she had been talking for so long without him interjecting some sly comment, or saying anything at all. She dropped off and looked to him. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

He held onto her gaze, finding that there was no way to respond to that. "Nothin'," he brushed it off, somewhat coyly.

She would have pursued that if his phone hadn't begun to ring. Never neglecting his coffee, he reached into his jacket pocket with his free hand and silenced the ringer.

"Who was that?" asked Tifa. "Why didn't you answer?"

Reno waved it away. "Oh, it was just Elena… she's been tryin' to call all morning."

He should have known that was the wrong thing to say. "_Just_ Elena?" Tifa started. "What's that supposed to mean? Reno, what if there's an emergency? You can't just ignore your friends when they—" She stopped, briefly stiffened in her seat, and then she dove forward, her hands going for his jacket pockets. "Give me that phone—"

Reno let out an odd yelp before trying to put up his own fight. "Woman! You need to learn to respect peoples' personal space—!"

But thanks to Elena's persistence (and Tifa's brute strength), there was no way out of this one. She had weaseled the phone from his grip, and with pursed lips, sat straight and took the liberty to answer it herself. "Hello, Elena?..."

* * *

Reno's irritation at their interrupted morning lost out to his curiosity, because Elena only urged them to come by. He and Tifa promptly found themselves clamoring up the stairs of the Junon Branch, following the signs, until they came upon Reeve's office. A slightly harried-looking Elena stood up when they entered and greeted Tifa. She was holding a magazine with her thumb to a certain page.

"What's up?" asked Reno.

She hesitated, regarding Tifa's accompaniment. "Well," she said, directing her attention back to the publication in her hands. "You… need to see this. Both of you."

Reno took it from her after she folded it back to that certain page, and he didn't immediately know what to look at. But it didn't take long to find it: a small photo in the bottom corner. Of himself and Tifa. From last night.

"That," gulped Tifa, at his side. "That doesn't look…"

"I know," said Reno, his brow furrowing as he read the little blurb next to the picture. It said what he feared it would; about her being spotted with him at the venue and alleged "sources" extrapolating a full-blown romance out of it. Not much more attention than that was paid to them, as it was only a small section that briefly mentioned local gossip.

"I can't _believe_ this!" cried Tifa, her eyes still wide on what she had just read.

"Yeah," Elena said oddly from her desk, eyeing the two of them with her chin on her hand. "I can't… either…"

Reno didn't care to look at it anymore; he dropped it on her desk. "It doesn't talk about us anywhere else, does it?"

"No," said Elena. "That's all I saw. But I thought you should know about it, and… be careful about… being seen out together…" She trailed off at the apparent lateness of her advice.

"Gosh," said Tifa. "They left me alone for a while; I was hoping they were off my back for good," she went on to recall, exasperated. "It was so bad right after we defeated Sephiroth—I saw the most ridiculous things on the covers. One time they got a picture of me about to _sneeze_ and turned it into a story about me punching some girl and vandalizing her car because she flirted with Cloud, or something stupid..."

Reno turned a disappointed look on her. "You mean that _didn't_ actually happen?" He dissolved to smirking at the face she made in response, but he soon didn't think it was funny anymore after she hit him hard enough in the arm.

"THE PHONE IS RINGING!" gasped Elena, and she dove across the desk to pick up the receiver.

"Always the overeager rookie," Reno observed slyly, and she stalled a moment to more professionally poise herself before answering. The redhead and the brunette decided to take their leave then.

"I had no idea," Tifa said, "that there was someone there taking pictures. And people were even _talking_ about us!"

They took the steps down from the second floor. "Maybe you should get used to the idea _now_," Reno said sourly, "'cause I bet you we'll be getting a lot of crap from everybody about this tonight…"

* * *

_How silly_, thought Tifa, as she walked the long block from her car to the Jukebox that night. _I went with Reno to his gig because he's my _friend_, and… well, and because he badgered me into going. How could anybody think we're dating? People can look at us and think they know—but they really _don't_, that's for sure…_

She pulled open the red door and let herself into the empty venue, feeling a slight apprehension as to what she should expect to put up with tonight. After settling her things behind the bar, she busied herself with getting the place ready to go.

It wasn't long before Dragen came out from the back, probably at the noise of her activity. He skulked around to get a look at her, a betrayed and long-faced stray.

"What's wrong with you?" Tifa asked him.

"What's _wrong_?" started the high-strung little musician. "Last night, neither of you were here. I asked the boss and he said that Reno had a gig and you were sick… he said you had a really horrible-sounding cough—" (Tifa had to roll her eyes) "—and you were staying home. Then today, I hear you were with Reno at this _other_ place last night!" His face fell. "Tifa… I thought you were above this…"

"Okay," admitted Tifa; she figured she may as well be honest from the start. "I wasn't actually _sick_. I just—"

"Well," Dragen allowed, still quite miserable. "I guess that explains why you were able to make out with him in the parking lot afterward…"

"I _WHAA—_?" Tifa shrieked.

"Well that's what I _heard_!" he shot back almost incriminatingly.

"No!" cried Tifa; this was already getting out of hand. "NO. That didn't happen! We didn't… make out, we're not even _dating_. Okay?"

"Whatever," Dragen said after giving her one last look of betrayal. He tossed his black head back and miserably worked his way back to the auditorium.

"No, really—HEY!" She felt herself becoming desperate. "You don't believe me? _Come back here_!"

The front door fell shut, and Tifa didn't know if she was ever more glad to see Reno. She knew it before a second had elapsed; by now his impression was more than familiar on her eyes: any part of it—his stance, his ease, the way his clothes hung off him.

"Havin' trouble already?" he asked her as he sauntered on in.

* * *

It was worse than she'd thought. The patrons who weren't already aware of their little tabloid appearance were quickly informed by those who were. Tifa tried to be a good sport about it, laughing it off and denying it when she had to, conveniently changing the subject to what she could get them to drink, but some people were a little too persistent about it and others got a kick out of making her blush.

Most frustratingly, she had to suffer through most of it alone: Reno was missing until about halfway through intermission. "Where _were_ you?" she hissed as he finally appeared to take his usual spot at the bar.

"I was talkin' to the boss," he said with a smile, "making sure you weren't in trouble, since your cover got blown. I told him you skipped at my insistence, but it's still no big deal to him." His eyes shifted. "Probably 'cause we're getting a lot more _business_, now…"

Tifa knew he wasn't kidding. The Jukebox wasn't the most popular establishment, but the bar was bustling with a lot more new faces than usually ventured in here… even for a Friday, the second-busiest night of the week.

She returned to him immediately after going to serve another customer a beer from the tap. "I heard a couple of them calling out in there," she said empathetically.

"Yeah," said Reno, looking severely unimpressed. He slumped forward a little on his elbows to keep the conversation between them. "And then that one smartass decided to make a joke about us right after I announced him. But it wasn't too bad, I just——what, _what_,_ WHAT_?" he called out over stray cheers and whistles, turning hotly to face the other stretch of the bar.

"He's talking to his GIRLFRIEND," muttered an embittered Dragen, who was already nursing his fourth beer. Tifa made a mental note to cut him off soon.

"Okay," said Reno, who clearly didn't want to hear any more. "Let's get this one thing straight: don't take the word of some tabloid when you can get the truth from the people concerned." He turned back to her. "Tifa, are we in a relationship?"

"No," she said, looking right at him.

He was looking right at her, too. "Was last night even a date?"

"No."

"There you have it," he said coolly. "Leave the poor girl alone, will ya?" He clipped his tone enough to leave no room. "And if you're one of those alleged 'sources,' let us know so she can PUNCH you."

He ended on a lighter note, but the point was still made; it didn't matter if everyone was convinced, but it mattered greatly to Tifa that she didn't get much more trouble than that for the rest of the night.

Reno went on to talk about his impending gig at Speed Square because someone else brought it up. He'd been in contact with the agent from Dio's office and it was a definite go. Tifa stayed near when she could to hear him, but it was then that she started to notice…

Why did it seem that he looked only at _her_; when he spoke, it was as if only addressed to _her_? A joke wasn't funny until he saw her reaction to it.

She blushed unconsciously with the observation.

_Since when…_? she wondered, because she knew it was not always like this. At that moment she also noticed for the first time that there was no sign of those annoying girls who once flanked Reno and vied for his attention and shot dirty looks her way… he used to be so smug and dismissive to her, but his shift in attentions as he finally came around must have looked like something else to them.

_But he only became my friend, _she immediately thought._ He's not actually interested in me like that_. However, all it took was the tiniest amendment, the slightest question in her mind: …_is he_?

Tifa tried to dismiss that but there was no way of writing it off; the impression on her heart was already made and she couldn't hold back whatever came from it now. In a matter of minutes she became flustered every time she drove a straight look into his face, because it felt like he was already seeking out hers.

No longer did she try to plant herself near where he sat; she thought it would help if she moved away from him—but most disconcertingly, she was still too wary of him in her blind spot, and the urge to keep shooting a glance his way was not any more diminished. She was so preoccupied now that she served someone nearby a drink that he hadn't asked for; and of _course_ Reno saw it, of _course_ he was right on her with some teasing remark and endearingly lazy smile. Tifa gripped the side of the bar and forced herself to laugh too, thinking that she would rather go somewhere and die than have to match his disarming gaze.

She moved on, her head never leaving that place, turning her frustration at her reactions toward herself. Why did it have to mean anything? It could not be the fact alone that he was acknowledging her like this; she put up with much more blatant (and less tactful) displays of interest from guys on a daily basis, and she never gave a second thought to any of them. For a long time now, the only man she ever _wanted_ attention from was Cloud. So why was she noticing Reno's?

_Oh, no… it can't be that I'm……?_

Intermission was already over, somehow, and Reno stayed back as per usual. Tifa found herself painfully self-aware under his gaze; he was never shy with eye contact and she hated that it only bothered her _now_.

He gathered the glassware for her at the other end without her even asking. "Thank you," she said while not quite looking at him.

"I'm glad that's over with," he said, sounding tremendously composed.

"Me too," she replied, tight-jawed, feeling like a complete idiot in comparison. The glossed swirl of wood grains had never held her attention for so long.

"Dragen's been lookin' at me funny all night," Reno went on, scratching the back of his neck. She practically heard the teasing smile break crooked on his face. "You broke his heart! And none of it's even true…"

"Yeah," Tifa forced out, feeling her face get intolerably hot. She turned away to grab a rag, a bit abruptly. _He's still here?… just go…!_

"Well," he said after a moment, "See ya in a bit…"

"See ya," she said without turning around. As the doors fell shut, she stole a wild look after him, still blushing, and fell sliding against the cabinets to the floor.

* * *

Tifa was left alone with her thoughts, her spinning head and all the anxious feelings churning in her stomach. She thought she had patched herself together, but her nerves got the better of her when everyone else had left except for him. She tried to talk herself out of it, tried to muster a good outward façade, but one split second of their eyes meeting was all it took to bring it apart. She knew what was coming next, too.

"Hey!" Reno said, practically hanging over the bar. "You wanna go hang out after—?"

"I," said Tifa, still not able to look at him. "I… don't think so. I don't feel up to it."

There was a beat of silence. "Oh," was all he said, and she heard him pull back. "Okay. That's cool…"

Tifa could not, for the life of her, get herself to turn back to him as the silence filled her ears. It stretched longer, and she noticed that he wasn't saying anything that he was supposed to by now; he wasn't pulling her out of her shell, he wasn't trying to bother her into going anyway… he wasn't even asking her _why_ she didn't feel up to going. He _never_ simply accepted it when she said no!

She couldn't stand this anymore. She whirled around and opened her mouth to say something—she didn't even know what—but just as she did so, she jumped at the sound of the front door falling shut… leaving her to stare after, completely washed over in shock. He had left…

* * *

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Post-Chapter Notes: I'm not gonna lie, I took a long break from this story to work on something else, after I got frustrated enough with this chapter. When I came back to it I realized why it wasn't working, even though every scene had been written: there were whole parts or lines that just didn't belong, that I thought were necessary but were just dragging the rest of it down... after they were removed, it magically wasn't so depressing to look at anymore.

This chapter was really hard to write, sorting through Tifa's thoughts and all! It was a real mess for a while there. And I'm still puttering on with this story, working on the next installment now that I'm back in the game. Next chappie, expect angsty Reno and anxious Tifa and... well, you'll see what happens...

Thanks for reading, you guys. :)


	15. Don't Say It

**Chapter 15**

The past several mornings found Reno waking up hungover to some degree. He didn't drink much when he was at work or otherwise out… but he did after all of that, late at night when he was inevitably by himself.

It was always on this side of inebriation that he might actually acknowledge the payoff wasn't worth it. When he finally did find sleep it was fitful, and too soon he found himself awake: a rumpled heap beside his bed in yesterday's clothes, dehydrated and fighting a headache that stung behind his eyes. He'd certainly had worse hangovers in the past, but it was only compounding to the fact that he _already_ felt like crap run-over twice.

Too early in the day to be up; shying from the sun in his kitchen, hobbling around to find pills to help him recover, mentally side-stepping everything he could.

But that was really a useless attempt. He could readily recall all the denying, all night, and her inability to even look at him… _why_ couldn't she look at him? That memory was the single most perturbing thing and he turned all of it inward. He refused to acknowledge what kind of hope he had been harboring, though he chided himself for it. Even if he didn't give it a name, he still felt like he had been gutted, or his heart was rotting, and she was so much a soft and serrated thing for him to even barely consider.

His phone had been left on the counter all night, and at first the bedraggled redhead completely ignored it when it started vibrating early that afternoon. He figured it was only Rude or Elena, though on the fourth ring he glanced at the external screen for lack of anything else to do.

The caller ID flashed _Tifa_.

It struck him so that he stumbled backwards, and in the next moment he was frozen to where he stood; he did nothing with his hands but the fight was all in his head. His first reaction was that he didn't _want_ to pick up… but he didn't understand why she was calling or what she could possibly have to say.

As it continued to ring, he turned away from it, rubbing his face, unable to make a decision. Perhaps he didn't mean for it to run its course, but it soon did. When he looked up he found it still and silent at the edge of the counter, and himself halfway torn between relief and something very akin to disappointment.

Left in the new silence, he turned to leave the kitchen with the wildly urgent thought that he had to get out of here, that he had to go… somewhere else. Anywhere else—to leave this place just so that he was _doing_ something.

But almost immediately his phone started vibrating again. Reno, hopelessly indecisive, had half-resolved to leave it before it inched itself off the edge of the counter and the flip came open on impact with the floor.

There it lay, still and silent with the line open. He swore inwardly that it had not broken or the battery hadn't at least popped out. Having no choice now, he walked over and picked it up.

"…yeah?" he answered warily.

"Reno." Her voice on the other end was careful, fine, and made him think of dark glass. "Hey. Look… I have to tell you that I'm really sorry about last night."

Reno's head folded into his other hand. "I didn't want to be botherin' you," he said hollowly. Hearing her again made him ashamed for the condition he was in; it made him feel as if he had no business talking with her.

"No no no," she started guiltily. "You weren't! I just… I was just… being really weird."

On his end of the line, he didn't respond.

"Look," she picked up again, "I want to see you. If—if you're not mad at me. Which I would totally understand, if you are…"

"_No_," said Reno, who could not believe she thought that. "No, of COURSE I'm not…"

* * *

Tifa came early in to the Jukebox that night, as she and Reno had agreed. She felt more fatigued than she should have at this time of day—she hadn't gotten much sleep, and her nerves still hadn't left her. But the uncertainty and worrying all night had gathered into one resolve by this morning: she had to know. She had to find out…

She didn't find him until she was behind the stage, where he stood against dim lamplight, and the curtain had been drawn shut. Stepping over cords, she steeled herself to look up at him.

"Hey," he said, something more halting in his ease than was normally there.

One great lurch and her heart had begun to pound harder and faster than before. "Hi." She scuffed her shoe on the floor. "You know, I… I actually made cookies today, again. But I forgot to bring them here…"

"Well then," Reno huffed, as if he were no longer interested in this conversation.

That bit of humor hung oddly in the still air between them, as if things could or were going back to how they were before. Her heart sunk even more at the certainty that they couldn't.

She knew she looked pained, as if burdened to say something, and he seemed to wait for her to say it. His eyes stayed on her, soft if not wary, with a slight frown of attention. And maybe she fooled herself but they may have let on that he knew what was hanging in the balance, too.

Tifa wanted to be bold; it occurred to her that she just needed to come out and say it. "Reno, I… I didn't just come for a chat. We need to talk about something serious. I need to know… where we are. _What_ we are." His gaze then slid from her to some far place beside her head, and she felt more dire. "Because… something's different now. The last few days have been…… I've…" She waited longer, and for nothing. He continued to not look at her and she felt herself retreat at the slightest terror of not being reciprocated… again. Was she just looking at Cloud's dense disacknowledgement? "Just—forget it." Heavy headed, and filled with embarrassment, she turned to go.

_I can't do this_! she told herself. _I can't bring myself to do this again…_

She wasn't far before his hand closed over her upper arm. Confused, she twisted around to face him, only to find her breath catching on his throat; she froze as she found him too close to see. The air around her crackled away from hearing and her heart rose, she didn't move as he kissed her cheek, and then again nearer her chin, slowly and barely grazing over her skin. They were so close, with him leaned down into her with his hand still around her arm, and her head so light that she was at once aware and not aware. She barely turned her head to offer her mouth and he took it.

The world was lost as secrets found their vent, so light and tentative. Tifa felt her own face's heat, and in an effort to find his mouth again she clumsily bumped into his nose with her own, but he didn't stop to laugh. His hand moved from her arm to stay her face, catching her hair under it; she reached up and around his neck as the space between them closed and his other arm went to secure her gently to him.

But then the auditorium door burst open beyond the curtain. They broke apart, and Reno swore softly after bumping backwards into a mic stand.

Neither said a word to each other, but they jumped into the hall and booked it for the back exit, determined not to be found by Dragen or the tech people. "You'll have to go out this way," Reno told her, opening the door to the waning sun and blushing buildings. With the light poured in, Tifa was surprised to see the flush across his own face that was not the sunset. "Come back in through the front."

"What about you?" she whispered, her head still swimming.

"We can't go in together! And it makes a little more sense for _me_ to be found back here, doesn't it? Now, go—before we get caught and I'm forced to make up an absurd story!"

Tifa hopped out into the short alley and turned back. He gave one slow fond smile that grew hers and winked before the door fell shut. She took her time walking, unable to stop grinning widely and ridiculously to herself, hooking her arms behind her back and trying to contain an elation that not even the city could damper anymore.

* * *

The rest of the night was surreal. Tifa at first was afraid of how things would play out between them now, but instead the air was easier and she found it was not difficult for she and Reno to act casual around one another… no matter how giddy she felt inside. They were in front of everyone, but every exchange was secret—a sideways gaze or a slight smile, hidden in a laugh or something else.

What was more, there were no suspicions from anyone out of the ordinary, which she found oddly, dizzyingly funny. Or maybe that was just how he made her feel.

The night melted by in a heady blur and then Reno was the only one left again. He leaned across the bar on his elbows as she finished putting away some glassware. "Can I steal you yet?" he asked.

She turned back to him, struck with a memory in that instant. "Oh no," she winced. "I promised Elena we'd go out tonight!"

"_What_!" Reno cried, very well near panic. "Cancel it!"

"I can't do that!"

"Why not? It's just Elena…"

"'_Just_'—why do you keep saying that?! Reno, we already _made_ these plans… you can ask me to lie to the boss, but not Elena. I'm sorry."

She watched him in earnest and rather drawn, and at length Reno sighed. "Fine," he muttered. He came around behind the bar, to her side.

"Maybe you could give Rude a call," she suggested.

"Yeah, maybe. But _I_ get to claim you for tomorrow, all right? Don't let her talk you into… shoe-shopping, or whatever…"

She watched his profile, remembering how she used to hail Cloud's smooth, brooding features as her ideal of handsomeness. Reno had a leaner, less refined look that rearranged into its own brand of attractiveness, made alive in different shades along with his expression. He was a more complicated study than Cloud, and even with the scars she liked looking at his face.

"All right," she said, "I promise we'll have all day tomorrow."

Before he left he pulled her to him again, and he was warm and solid to lean on. Tifa was thrilled, inwardly contented by this new development that she just knew would change everything, and already the world wasn't the same over his shoulder.

* * *

"Frankly," remarked Rude, "I was surprised when you called."

"Yeah, well," Reno said. "I figured we were long overdue to paint the town."

The bald Turk's smile turned wry. "I knew that Tifa wasn't going to be available tonight. Elena told me."

He cleared his throat. "Exactly. While they have their night of… girliness, we're together for a _guys'_ night out."

They were at a sports bar, one that neither of them had been to before. It was also a stupid decision because neither of them kept up on spectator sports—they never had, when he thought about it. As a Turk he just always had more important things to do in his free time, such as devising new pranks and hoarding candy.

At the bar, Reno was floored when Rude turned down his offer of a cigarette.

"Elena quit, too," he informed him. "We're the reason she even started in the first place, you know. It seems like we always go through everything together… maybe you should follow suit?"

Reno snorted; he wouldn't allow himself to be shamed from his cigarettes. He became very aware of how his friend was watching him, mostly because the conversation had dropped off. He shifted in his seat, unable to help the matter; his mind was in a different place entirely.

"So… anything new with Tifa?"

He looked at him sidelong; Rude was intuitive, but he was no mind-reader. "Nope," he said. For some reason he felt resistant to telling him the truth; something in his mind kept that from ever reaching his throat.

"Uh-_huh_…"

Instead of sitting at the bar, they went to shoot some pool—it was Reno's suggestion, as he was too stir-crazy to sit still. There was an apparently important soccer game playing on the large, loud televisions and every time a goal for a particular team was scored, the whole place went wild with testosterone-driven cheering and fist-pumping and beer-sloshing. Reno and Rude started to join in whenever this happened, not because they knew what was going on, but because they somehow felt less manly for being the only ones in the bar who didn't—aside from the few very bored-looking girlfriends and wives who were clearly not here by choice.

"I've been thinking a lot lately," said Rude, lining up a shot, "about this time last year. Remember Tseng's birthday, when we filled his whole office with packing peanuts? And, Elena…"

"Yeah," Reno nodded, side-stepping the memory. "Think that was the first time I'd ever seen her so mad."

"With that kind of prank, I don't think Tseng would have put up with it if it were done by anyone else." He stood to the side, twisting his pool stick. "You were his favorite, you know."

Reno immediately let off the wall. "Come on, why are you doing this now?"

"Doing what?"

"You know EXACTLY what I'm talking about. This stuff that Elena pulls… always trying to bring up the past—"

"Why is it my fault that you can't handle talking about the past?" said Rude mildly; he had dropped his gauntlet, too. "It's been a year, Reno—and you can't tolerate it when Tseng is even brought up in casual conversation. Don't you think something's wrong with that?"

"Look, why can't you just—"

"And I've been trying to understand why. Is it because, the last time we saw him—"

"DAMN it, Rude, if you don't stop this I'm—"

"If you want to get pissed off and storm out on me again, well… to be honest, I'm surprised that you haven't already."

Reno fell silent, watching Rude as he stared back. He recognized the heat trapped under his collar, the urge to lose it on him and leave. He then resolved not to, thinking that he was right—that was all he had been doing when he was with his comrades lately. "I'm _not_ gonna leave," he said heavily.

"Good," said Rude. And Reno turned and walked right into the end of his best friend's pool stick, dragging a blue line of pool chalk across his cheek. He saw the smile spread across Rude's face, and it was war.

* * *

Before they went their separate ways, Rude stopped him outside of the bar. "Is there still chalk on my face?" he asked him.

"Nope," Reno lied. "What about me?"

"No," lied Rude. "Not even a smudge."

"Good," said Reno. "Well, it was fun—I'll see you around." He turned to go, ignoring Rude's hesitation; he looked as if he wanted to say something else, but he dreaded what that would be. He'd had enough…

He walked to his car, feeling that the things Rude said tonight made him want something gone. All of a sudden he was wistful for the sight of a Loveless poster, or spry lights in smoky sectors, and the feeling that it was never going to change.

He thought he could understand now, those places that Tifa talked about, because hers had burned away, too. And it occurred to him that maybe she knew how to make this stop; maybe she could take it away for him, like that despairing tightness in his chest had melted away in a slow burn as he kissed her tonight. There was not enough alcohol in his system to sway disbelief from setting in and what happened earlier felt like a dream from someplace else. It was true, right? She leaned up into him and her nose bumped into his; and he held her as if he wasn't supposed to be, afraid like she was too fragile for his hands.

His nerves had been fuzzy with warm pleasant thoughts of her all evening, but now he was seized by a feeling that there was something of his that she had now, and it was a gnawing and uncomfortable restlessness that panged through him in waves, like nicotine withdrawal.

He wanted to see her. He wanted to jump out of his skin.

* * *

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Post-Chapter Notes: Mwahaha! From the sound of it, it didn't seem like anyone was really expecting the romance to finally break open so soon. I feel very sneaky indeed...

You guys! I checked the outline and THERE'S ONLY **THREE** CHAPTERS LEFT!! I'm freakin' out! Well, there's three months left of my summer and my goal is to finish this fic by the time I head back to school. It seems like each chapter is going to have something very difficult to write, but I'm gonna try anyway.

A couple of the scenes in this chappy were also difficult for obvious reasons, but I hope you liked it. :D Leave a review, if you feel so inclined...


	16. It Cost Too Much

**Chapter 16**

"We haven't been very good at following Elena's advice, you know," she told him.

He had a coy, crooked smile for her as leaned over the bar. "You know, you're right." He watched Tifa as she finished hanging up the last of the glasses. "But maybe I don't care what anyone might think of us."

"Neither do I," said Tifa.

"Oh really?" He settled back in the bar stool and studied her. "What if AVALANCHE found out?"

"I know just what they'd have to say," said Tifa, a defiant note finding its way in, "but I'd tell them where they can shove it."

"Yeah, _sure_ you would!"

"I'm perfectly serious!" She turned back to him. "They're going to have to deal with the fact that I'm doing things for myself now… and that I'm not waiting around for Cloud any longer." She paused. "Not that… not that I even want him at _all_, anymore. It wouldn't make a difference if he were to show up on my doorstep tomorrow."

"Well," said Reno, for lack of anything better to say, "that's a far cry from the Tifa Lockheart I knew a few weeks ago."

She exhaled, smiling. "It feels so good to be able to say those things."

"So what do you wanna do tonight?" Reno asked her, leaning back in.

"You know, Elena called after intermission… I thought we could go see and see her and Rude."

He began to laugh, a little desperately. "Tifa," he said. "Oh, Tifa. You are SO. FUNNY."

"I'm not kidding, Reno."

"But why?" He gave her his most injured look. "Don't you want to spend time with me?"

"I've spent time with you all day!" said Tifa, coming around from behind the bar with her purse. "And we're going to be together all day _tomorrow_. Why don't you want to see your own best friends?"

"'Cause I'd rather see _you_," he said, stopping her in her tracks. "Please, Teef... let's do something else. Anything else. I can think of a thousand funner things to do than going to Rude and Elena's. Rude's not much of a conversationalist, you see, and Elena's just going to tell you about how she thinks she's gaining weight… and their kitchen is full of all this fat-free food she likes to buy and then complain about."

"I had a lot of fun with her the other night," said Tifa, stepping around him. "And I'm pretty sure that Rude's not a mute."

"Hey!" He kept in stride with her. "Let's go to that really great diner up on Circlet and 35th… get a REALLY RICH dessert!"

"We did that last night."

"Then can we just paint the town? Hijack a gelato stand? Hell, we can go down to Under and stare at the sky for as long as you want!"

"But I don't want to do any of those things tonight."

Just in front of the door, he took her wrist and spun her around once, grabbing both her hands and forcing her into a dramatic pose when she nearly fell into him. "Tango lessons!"

"Uh… _whoa_ there, Turbo." She twisted free of his grasp. "That's enough out of you! We're going to see Elena and Rude, and that's that!"

"…yes, ma'am."

* * *

Reno grumbled unintelligibly the entire drive to Rude and Elena's, and Tifa ribbed him lightly for it.

Rude buzzed them up and they went in through the glossy chandeliered foyer and took the elevator that didn't creak; Reno only felt more annoyed or anxious as they approached the apartment. Once inside, they found themselves at the end of a side hall that opened into the spacious kitchen; beyond that could be seen the wide doorway to the living room.

After the greetings Elena offered a tour, which Tifa took, being too gracious for her own good. Reno shifted a dark look at their retreating forms before making a beeline for the mini-bar; Rude followed.

The piano sat on the other end of the living room, in shadows. He was wary of it, but it was easy to ignore—especially from inside the bar, where he was going through each bottle. "Do you guys even _use_ this thing?" he asked Rude.

"No," he admitted. "Not often…"

"Well, that's gonna have to change, starting now!" A bottle in each hand, with fingers wrapped around glass necks, he busied himself with studying the labels as Rude leaned over the bar to watch.

"I'm surprised you haven't used it sooner. We sort of figured you'd be the one to break it in."

He scoffed, although the presence of liquor kept him from being too serious. "You held out just for me? Oh, I'm flattered..."

"…annnd here's the bar, which Reno has already gotten into…"

Elena's tour had led to where he was. He looked up at her, holding up a bottle in one of his hands. "Wanna split one?"

Elena made a face. "Of whiskey?"

He lowered his arm, regarding it glumly. Perhaps he was being a little too hopeful…

"Hey," said Tifa, looking toward the other end of the room. "What's that over there?—you have a… piano?"

Reno stiffened in his place. Still armed with liquor, his eyes flew to her and he felt a wild urge to say something distracting, but he didn't know what.

"Yeah," said Elena, and he remained gagged. "Do you play?"

An awestruck Tifa left his line of sight, and he made himself put down the bottles and step around the bar to see what she was doing. She walked slowly to that end of the room, seeming to have forgotten to answer the question.

She lifted the lid and ran her fingers over the keys; they began tentatively tapping out scales before recalling bits of melodies. He, Rude, and Elena just watched as the notes grew bolder, attached into lilting songs, and filled the apartment.

Then the music ended. "It's a real fine piano," Tifa said, seeming to have come out of her initial awe. She looked up at them. "Oh! I hope you don't mind that I—it's just been so long—"

"No," Rude reassured her, "you're fine. It's… nice to hear it being used again."

"You mean, no one plays?" she asked, taking care to replace the lid over the keys.

After a brief silence came Elena's reply. "Tseng did."

"Oh." Tifa stared at her before a little smile graced her face. "Well, I think it's wonderful that you guys kept something to remember him by."

Reno's head folded in toward his chest._ Remember?_ he thought, scowling, blinking away images already pressed behind his eyes. _I don't want to remember him by anything_…

In the silence Rude and Elena shifted uncomfortably and looked to him, and Reno sidled back behind the bar, safe around the corner, until Tifa got the hell away from there.

* * *

It was not long after Tifa discovered the piano that Reno found some excuse to leave. Everyone saw through it, but Rude and Elena humored him, and let them go with a promise that they'd all get together again. A strained silence followed them as he took her home, and he didn't let her apologize for anything. Tifa went to sleep confused and worried about tomorrow.

But she heard from him again much sooner than she thought: before the sun was even up the next morning , he called her. He said he wanted to see her. They agreed to meet, and it was decided that they would find someplace in this city where they could see the sun rising.

A few minutes later they collided into each other outside her apartment, under the settled darkness away from the street lamps. The morning air was chilly while he was warm, and he was tall enough to disappear into when she leaned into him. All of this was still so new…

But she couldn't help noticing how thin he felt, or thinking about how he had sounded on the phone. Maybe this had something to do with last night, after all.

"Are you okay?" she murmured.

"I am now," he said into her hair. He pulled back. "Let's walk."

She strained to see him by the dim light of a streetlamp. His hair did whatever it wanted to on top of his head and whiskers dotted his jawline; his eyes weren't clear to her but his smile was easy and ready as ever. It became clear that Reno did not want to be serious this morning, and Tifa didn't want to be, either.

With a thrill she thought of how this was something she could never see herself doing with Cloud—meeting at odd hours of the day, having asinine conversations, setting out together just to find the sunrise…

The two came upon a crosswalk, and they both stopped as if they had never seen one before. Then they took one look at each other, and when the sign changed they knew what to do.

"AAAAAAAAUUUUUGHHH!"

"EEEEEYYYAAAAAAAAHHH!"

All the way across, they booked it while screaming like a car was swerving for them. One they reached the other end, their yelling dissolved into laughter with no regard for how it reverberated in the street and shook off the buildings. She fell back on his arm and their steps regulated in their aimless path. Beyond the lampposts and a break in the buildings she could see the sky getting lighter.

"Are we going to do this at _every_ crosswalk?"

"Why not?"

After the last smile from that faded, something in the lines of his face reminded Tifa that it was still bothering her, so she went ahead and broached the subject: "Reno, about last night—"

"Don't worry about it."

She watched his profile, her voice small. "O… kay..."

"Oh yeah," Reno started. "Forgot to tell you. I got a voice mail last night… Speed Square is in a couple of weeks, but they want me to head out there early… maybe a few days before. Some promotional thing. But they didn't tell me where I'm staying… do you think it'll be that scary-ass hotel in the Gold Saucer?"

She snorted. "You'd better ask!"

"Not that it's actually _scary_, of course," he amended. "It's hard to be scared by a bunch of cheap crap popping up everywhere. Shinra made us stay there once on a mission and we all hated it."

"I don't think _anyone_ hates that place more than Vincent," said Tifa. "Other guests kept mistaking him for hotel staff the entire time."

"I actually felt pretty bad for Mr. Hangman… now that's a guy who regrets his career choice every day of his life…" Reno looked over at her then, switching gears. "You're gonna come see me, right?"

Her eyes widened. "Did you have to ask?"

"Well, last I checked, you weren't that eager to go back to Costa…"

"But now, I think I'm ready to face them. Or at least I will be by then…"

He kept talking, or he kept her talking; flitting from subject to subject whenever the conversation trailed off. Reno squelched the silences with ridiculous stories from the Shinra days: about the time that Hojo put specimens in the Turk lounge fridge and Palmer mistook one for cracker spread when he came in scavenging; about when they were forced to babysit Dark Nation for Rufus and they lost her in the HQ for several hours; about the many pranks he and Rude devised and executed in their downtime.

They also became street-crossing experts, incorporating new exclamations and arm-waving and reaching new levels of disruption with every crosswalk they met. Tifa was more than obliged to join in on the slap-happy spontaneity of being with Reno.

Before much longer they found what they were looking for from an old footbridge on the edge of town. And they weren't late for the show: the sun had just broken free of the mountain range and there was nothing to obstruct the view.

For a long moment Tifa took it in, the brilliant colors blossoming on them; the sky was clear and the few clouds there were had flattened into purple shapes against the deep red horizon. The reds and pinks pushed up on the steadily lightening slate of the sky. Observing a spectacle of nature, even from her place in a cramped city, she could almost pretend she was breathing the fresh air of the countryside. And she was glad she wasn't witnessing it alone.

She looked to Reno at her left, seeing only his mess of bright deepened scarlet because his attention was turned the other way—was he straining to see Midgar from here?

But his head turned back, and in the high light Tifa saw what she couldn't earlier—that she hoped she only imagined, but she was sure of it now. It wasn't just tiredness in his eyes, and it wasn't just lack of sleep that had been responsible for the uncomfortable halting in their running conversation. There was something lagging and uneasy and… sad about him.

He studied her face too despite himself, and Tifa struggled in her head to find something to say. She tried to smile for him; he stooped down and her heart thrilled when he kissed her, but once it was over it sunk back into the sick place it had found once her suspicions had been confirmed.

His hands remained closed around her upper arms; his eyes continued to trail down her face and jump back to her eyes, and she could only look back into his.

"You look so _sad_," he said at length.

"I am," she acknowledged.

Reno let go and began to turn back toward the city. "Well, should we yell across some more streets, or—?"

"We already did. It won't help." She hugged herself, finding it hard to swallow. "I could laugh, I could do anything, but it'll just come back again."

It was a moment before he turned to face her, and another before he said anything. "What's makin' you so sad?"

Tifa had forgotten the sun. She tried to find an answer for that with him in front of her, with that worn look in his eye, the burden he'd been trying to deny all morning.

"You," she broke out.

He gaped at her; she blinked away the sudden blurriness in her vision and asked what she couldn't wait any longer to ask:

"Reno, what's wrong? Why are we out so early?—Why did you need to see me _now_?"

He frowned. "What do you mean, 'why did I need to see you now?' Do I _need_ a reason to—"

"When I know that you don't like to wake up before noon? Yes!"

His shoulders slumped; he hesitated. "It was just a dream."

'_It's always a dream'…_ "A dream? Was it Tseng? Was he denying his death again?"

"No." Reno swallowed; he looked at anything but her. "He wasn't denying it, it was like I was there when—when he was dying. But I was never actually… we never saw him…" He stopped, and his attention shifted to her afresh. "Wait," he said, the force coming back into his voice with each question. "You—you were there, weren't you? You saw him, didn't you?"

Tifa started shaking her head, despite the memory of Tseng sitting stiff against the pillar, pale and bleeding out, remaining behind her eyes. "No. No… Reno, don't do this…"

"Why not?" he pressed—a tone she'd never heard from him before. "Because you _did_ see him there?—dying _alone_, and—"

"Stop it!"

"Why won't you tell me?"

"Because you don't need to know!"

The silence settled sharp against her cry and he pulled back to turn away from her. She struggled to find her bearing.

"You don't need to—concern yourself with that, Reno… or torture yourself about it," she said to his back. "I know that… losing him must have been—"

"I don't want to talk about it," he said without turning around.

"Do Rude and Elena even know about these dreams? Have you even—"

"Just forget it. Leave it alone."

She bit her lip. "Reno, I—I just can't stand to see—"

"TIFA."

Her vision blurred over again and she fell against the rail, her hands gripping it. After a long moment he faced the sunrise too, and she was still willing tears away when his hand came over hers. But he stood off to the side and didn't say anything or look up at her.

* * *

x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x

Post-Chapter Notes: All right, guys. I'm sorry for the absurd wait again. Now that I'm out of school, and it's darn near impossible to find a job, I'm taking advantage of the extra time I've got. ;)

Seriously, I'm trying to finish this. Oh, and I had to rehash things a bit and there's still THREE more chapters to go after this... I'm pretty sure...

Just a little fact: the silly little Shinra stories that Reno told Tifa, and some other allusions, were all humor fics I tried to write years ago but never got off the ground. Now they've become part of the backstory for the characters in my own mind.

Thanks for reading, guys. This next one's a doozy... wish me luck! =D


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